


Children of Mammon

by RLeeSmith



Series: Everything Is All Right [3]
Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2018-10-10 09:18:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 40
Words: 258,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10434537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RLeeSmith/pseuds/RLeeSmith
Summary: After spending one long night with Mike Schmidt, everything Ana Stark thought she knew about her missing aunt has changed. The life she had only just begun to build has fallen down and she doesn’t know what else to do except build it up again. But how? What is the truth about Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria and the animatronics who live there? Who was the man in purple? And…who is she?This is Part Three of a 5-Part Series.For Part One, please read Girl on the Edge of Nowhere.For Part Two, please read Mike Schmidt and the Long NightFive Nights At Freddy’s is the creation of Scott Cawthon. The characters of Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, Mangle, Toy Freddy, Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, Mike Schmidt, Jeremy Fitzgerald, Fredbear, Springtrap, Plushtrap, the Puppet, Balloon Boy, and the Purple Guy, as well as Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, belong to him. Everything else is a product of my own imagination and no similarity to actual events, locations, or people is intended or should be inferred. Do not reproduce, repost or copy any part of this story without my permission.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING! This book contains strong adult themes, including adult language, drug and alcohol references, graphic depictions of child abduction, violence towards children and adults, graphic gore violence and explicit sexual content. You have been warned.
> 
> I’d also better take a moment here to say that I started writing this before certain truths were revealed in a certain book and a certain game, so it goes without saying that the story you’re about to read follow my Alternate Universe timeline/theory and not canon lore. Sort of not sorry either. If Scott Cawthon wanted to see William Afton or Ennard in my books, he should have consulted me before releasing Silver Eyes and Sister Location.
> 
> As always, a sincere thank you to all those who took the time to rate and review if you liked it (or even if you didn't like it). If you are interested in my non-fanfiction work, feel free to check out my blog (the address keeps disappearing when I type it here. It's rleesmith dot wordpress dot com) or look me up on Amazon.

_“Hello, hello? Hey, you’re doing great! Most people don’t last this long. I mean, you know, they usually move on to other things by now. I’m not implying that they died. That’s not what I meant. Uh, anyway, I better not take up too much of your time. Things start getting real tonight.”_

 

# CHAPTER ONE

_August 12, 1996_

It was hot in the closet from the start and with winter clothes pressing down from above and heavy blankets heaped to one side, the heat became almost an animal thing, panting its used breath into Ana’s face as she lay huddled and crawling with sweat atop a pillow of mismatched shoes. She slept closet-sleep, oppressive and unrestful, but deep enough that she never heard footsteps on the kitchen linoleum until the door rattled and opened, hitting Ana with the twin slaps of fresher air and bright light. She raised her head groggily, seeing only a formless black mass against the light.

“Get dressed,” her mother told her. “We’re going out.”

Ana unfolded her body and made it work, gaining her feet and walking to her room on legs that somehow were both shaky and stiff. There was still a little fire shining off the dirty clouds outside her window, proof that she had been in the closet only a few hours this time. It had felt like much longer since she’d come home from school and walked stupidly into the eye of her mother’s storm. She had no idea what she’d done this time and had learned not to ask. She was beginning to learn to be grateful for the closet, which, hot and dark and suffocating as it was, was still a barrier between Ana and her mother’s fists.

Ana opened the broken suitcase where she kept all her clothes, shifting the neat piles of tops and bottoms until she found the too-tight top and too-small shorts that were her ‘going out’ clothes. She took a quick shower, brushed her wet hair, then dressed without looking at herself in the mirror. A little tinted lip gloss was all the make-up she was allowed to wear and applying it took all the time she had left to waste. Her mother was already waiting for her in the car.

It was a twenty minute drive to Rider’s place. Neither spoke.

Rider didn’t look happy when he answered the door and saw Ana’s mother, but he told her to wait and let Ana in. “Give me a sec,” he said and left her there by the door. She heard his voice from several rooms away and other men’s voices in answer. When he came back, he gave her a nod of release and she followed him to his bedroom at the back of the house.

“Look at me,” said Rider, switching on the overhead light.

Ana looked at him, holding very still as his steely gaze moved over her.

“Lift your hair.”

She obeyed, gathering up the heavy mess of it and pushing it atop her head to fully expose her face and neck.

“Turn left.”

She faced left.

“Right.”

She faced right.

His rough fingers moved in fast; Ana did not flinch. He prodded at the nape of her neck, finding little pains she hadn’t known were there. Her mother’s fingernails must have scratched her when she’d grabbed Ana by the hair to drag her to the closet.

“You wearing something under that shirt?” he asked.

She nodded. She’d only started wearing a bra in the last year, but she’d already reached the point when she either had to wear it all the time or suffer the stares of the boys at school and sometimes the teachers.

“Take it off,” said Rider. “The shirt.”

She got up from the bed and peeled her tight tee off, holding it in one hand while Rider inspected her.

“Turn around.”

She faced the wall, studying the patterns in the textured paint while Rider took account of the bruises, old and new. She hated this part more than any other, the baring of her back. He’d seen her scars so many times, she ought to be used to it by now. She wasn’t. If anything, it got a little worse every time.

“You got anything to tell me?” he asked, moving her arm to better see her ribs on that side.

She shook her head.

“All right. We’re done.” He went to his work-table, moved some bricks of money aside and pulled the tacklebox he called his sample-case closer. “I got people over,” he told her as he measured out rocks onto a square of paper and twisted it together. “Want you to stay here until I’m done with ‘em. Watch some movies or whatever.”

“Can I use the bathroom first?” asked Ana, who didn’t need to go.

“You don’t got to ask to piss in my house,” he said curtly. “Do what you got to do, just keep out of sight while I do business.”

He left.

Ana waited a little while, then went silently after him. She took herself to the bathroom that was off the main hall and not the one adjoining Rider’s bedroom. She squeezed into the narrow space between the shower and the toilet and quietly opened the window. She listened.

“—show up at my house without an invitation. This is the last time I’m going to tell you. Next time, I just shoot you, understand?”

“You don’t answer my calls,” Ana’s mother said in that petulant voice she only used with men.

“I answer ‘em. I just answer ‘em in my time, not yours. Look at me.” A pause. A slap. “Look at me. You want my shit for free, you obey my rules. Got that?”

Silence. Her mother must have nodded.

“Good. Name ‘em. Just so we’re clear.”

“Call before I come over. Get an invitation.”

Another pause. Another slap, harder. “And?” Rider pressed.

“Save her for you.”

“That’s good. And in that spirit—” A third blow, but not a slap this time. The dull whump of Rider’s fist hitting Ana’s mother immediately preceded a retching, honking caw of pain. A stomach-punch. Kidney-shot, maybe. “There are scratches on my pony’s neck,” said Rider calmly while her mother sniveled. “There are bruises on her arms in the shape of a hand.”

“It’s just a bruise. She bruises easy.”

“Just a bruise. You must think I’m stupid.”

“I never touched her!”

“Then you let another man ride my pony, is that what you’re saying?”

“What? No!”

“You selling her? Huh? Woman, you better get up off your fucking knees or you’re gonna die on them. You look me in the fucking eye, this eye right here, and tell me you ain’t been selling that girl to any other man but me.”

“No!”

“No, you won’t?” asked Rider, still calm, even as Ana’s mother let out a sudden, shrill scream. He had just pulled a gun. And, to judge by the equally sudden, shrill silence, aimed it. “Or no, you ain’t?”

“No, I haven’t!” Ana’s mother said hoarsely, scarcely discernable, and it was a quiet day. There was no traffic around Rider’s house, no buildings, nothing. He could fire that gun dry and no one would ever hear it but the people who were already here and they wouldn’t care. “I never would! Never!”

“Then what’s the story here? You ain’t watching her? She sneaking out and fucking around behind your back?”

“She wouldn’t dare!”

Pause. “I know,” said Rider and he must have put his gun away, because her mother started sniveling again. “I know she wouldn’t. And if you’d told me she had just to save your sorry skin, I would have shot you dead for the lie. I hope you know that.”

Surly tears.

“So,” said Rider. Gravel crunched as he walked a short ways. Circling her, maybe. “So what’s the real story? Tell it to me and tell the truth.”

A mutter.

A slap. 

“I said, she doesn’t listen!”

“Bitch, she don’t need to listen to you. She listens to me and so the fuck do you. When I say I want her kept clean for me, that means you keep your fucking hands off her too. That is my pony. You? You’re just the stable where I’m boarding her. She comes to me banged up again, and you go straight into the ground. We clear?”

Silence.

“Good. Get out of here. You can pick her up tomorrow night.”

“She’s got school.”

“Oh fuck off with that like you give a shit. Call her in sick and pick her up tomorrow. Not before six, no later than ten. And?”

“Call first.”

“Call first,” Rider agreed, already walking away. “Get out of here.”

Rider’s front door closed. Ana shut the window and went to the bedroom as her mother drove away. She turned on the TV, found a good horror movie on his shelf, and lay down on the bed to wait.

She watched all of Castle Freak and half of Killbox before car engines started up and tires rolled away. Ana kept her eyes on Rider’s big-screen and her hands loosely laced on her flat tummy as she listened to his heavy boots coming up the hall toward her. The door opened. Closed. A paper bag with the McDonald’s logo landed on the bed next to Ana’s hip. She moved it so it wouldn’t touch her and tried not to smell the burgers inside.

Rider shrugged out of his heavy jacket as he walked in front of the TV and hung it over the open closet door. He took off his shirt, sniffed it, and tossed it on the floor. He took a fresh one from the closet and tossed it to her, took another and put it on. He dropped onto the mattress beside her and kicked off his boots.

“What are we watching?” he asked, reaching into the nightstand for his bedroom pipe.

“Killbox.” Ana took her tee off again and pulled his shirt on slowly. It was loose, blurring out the curves of her ever-changing body. Even clean, it smelled faintly of Rider—sweat, weed and earth.

“You bring that over?”

Ana shook her head, climbing back onto the bed. Rider put a pillow between them. She settled where she was, uncomfortably close to the edge. “It was on your shelf.”

“It was?” Rider paused in the act of filling his bowl to study his movie collection. “I don’t remember buying that.”

“You must have been watching it. I had to rewind it.”

“No shit? Huh. Must be one of Jenny’s.” 

Ana didn’t ask who that was. There was almost always a woman at Rider’s house. There was probably one here now. Some of them tolerated Ana’s visits with icy dislike, others with open hostility, and one or two had actually been kind of nice, but none of them stayed long.

Rider lit, took a few puffs and blew it out slow. His gaze dropped to the bag of burgers. He nudged it with his leg. “You want one? They’re today’s.”

“No.”

“Why not? And don’t start that ‘they’re not mine’ shit. I’m giving them to you.”

“I’m not hungry,” she lied.

“This’ll cure that.” He passed her the pipe and laced his hands behind his head, studying the evisceration onscreen with an academic eye. “Look at that fucking fake blood. Movie making is a million dollar industry, they tell me, and they still can’t afford realistic fucking blood.”

Ana breathed in the smoke and held it longer than she had to, so she could time her exhale with the last breath of the killer’s victim. When she could, she said, “I think they do it on purpose.”

Rider snorted. “Naw. Why would they?”

“Real-looking blood would be disturbing.”

“Horror movies are supposed to be scary.”

“No. They’re supposed to be fun. It’s only fun if it’s fake.” She took another lungful of smoke, timing this one with the masked killer’s own heaving breath as he stood over the corpse. “If it’s real and fun, there’s something wrong with you.”

“With me, huh?”

“I meant ‘you’ generally, but whatever,” she said with a shrug. “If the shoe fits.”

Rider glanced at his bare feet, flexing his toes, then crossed one leg over the other and returned his attention to the screen. “You’re gonna miss school tomorrow.”

“Oh well.”

“Yeah, that’s about what I thought you’d say and in just that tone. You still going to school?”

“Sometimes.”

“What’d I tell you about that shit?”

“That I’m going to fuck up my life.”

“Then why you still doing it?”

She shrugged again, watching the killer hack and tear at the body, turning it from a person into meat. “It’s already fucked up.” 

“I swear to God, you start this nihilist teenage shit in my house and we are fucking done.” He took the pipe from her, had another hit, and put it on the nightstand beside him. “You want a better life, get a fucking education and quit hanging out with drug dealers.”

Ana thought about it, then went ahead and said it, her heart beating harder although she tried not to let it show. “I think I’d get a better education hanging out with them full-time.”

Rider watched the movie.

Ana waited.

“I feel you looking at me,” he said at last. “But this is not a conversation we’re having, so you just better put them demon-dog-eyes back on the screen.”

She did. The surviving teens, unaware of the fate that had befallen their friends, had paired off and were making out. Shirts and bras were coming off while, close enough to watch but still unseen, the killer unsheathed his machete and held it at a ready angle.

“You think I ain’t seen this coming?” Rider asked. “You been carrying that around in a floating bubble over your head practically since I met you. You had to put it out there. Fine. Might as well, instead of pretending you ain’t thinking it every time you look at me, but you are way too smart to think it was going to go any other way but this.”

“I’m not arguing, am I?”

“Yeah, you are,” he said testily. “You’re just doing it without talking and it’s pissing me off. Get this straight, girl. I do not rescue damsels in distress. Just because I draw the line at diddling kids does not make me your Prince Charming.”

“I’ll settle for a pirate. I’m a realist.”

“Oh, are you? Well, you might want to get your reality-scope recalibrated because you have overlooked one or two tiny details in this fantasy of yours. Just what is it you think is going to happen if I should aerate your mom’s head for you, huh? You think the sun comes out and the world goes color and the munchkins hand you lollipops and you and me trip off together down the yellow brick road? No, ma’am. Your skinny ass goes straight to foster care, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. And this I will tell you right now for free: you are too old, too mouthy and way too fucking pretty for that to end well.”

“And what do you think will happen if you don’t?” she countered. “Sooner or later, she’s going to piss the wrong guy off and leave town. Wherever it is we end up, she’ll find the next guy like you and put me in his pocket. You think he’ll be putting pillows between us on the bed? Or I could just run away, is that what you think?” she asked as his eyes dipped to the pillow. “And how the hell do you think that’s going to end? Those are my options. Why don’t _you_ pick one?”

“Jesus Christ.” He rubbed a hand over his face, rough skin scratching at new beard-growth, louder even than the screams coming from the TV. “We ain’t doing this, girl. We ain’t. Now we can sit here and watch this movie, or I can get up and walk out on you, but _this_ horseshit, we ain’t doing.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re fucking twelve!” he snapped, dropping his arm with his hand in a fist. “What the fuck do you think I am?”

“I’m thirteen,” said Ana without emotion. “Today was my birthday.”

The fire died back in his pale eyes. He frowned.

“It’s my birthday,” she said again. “And my mother sold me to her drug dealer. Again. Who the fuck do I think you are? I think you’re the only one who can get me away from her before it’s too late.”

“And do what with you? Jesus, Ana, you think I can magically produce a fucking kid and no one’s going to notice? I already got a dozen ex-bitches and half a dozen ponies who think I’m a fucking chomo. You think I don’t get the side-eye over that every time they see you creeping around my fucking house? Ain’t nobody buys that ‘she’s my niece’ story, least of all my goddamn brothers! And what am I going to do with you, for real now?” he demanded. “You think I’m going to pack your lunches and go to fucking PTSA meetings? Huh? Or do you think I’m going to stable a fucking _child_ , put you on the fucking playground peddling shit to all the kids in your class?”

“They don’t have playgrounds in middle school.”

He thrust a callused finger in her face like it was a gun. “Don’t you fucking wax pedantic with me, girl. You know goddamn well what I meant. And don’t look at me like that,” he said, settling angrily back against the headboard and glaring at the TV. “I got a good thing just starting to get going here. I ain’t throwing it away. I feel for you, I do, but I ain’t the good guy in the story of your sorry life and that’s just the way it is.”

“Then just fuck me already.”

He pushed his entire body back with a bang and stared at her.

“This is the life you’re leaving me in,” she said, lifting her chin. “And if you won’t get me out, then teach me how to do it right. I can be a high-money escort instead of a two-dollar whore, for a few years, at least.”

Someone in the movie screamed, moaned, died.

Rider got up, all hard muscle and quiet rage, and walked out. But he didn’t put his shoes on, Ana noted, and she didn’t hear his car start up out in the driveway, so he was probably coming back. To do what, she didn’t know, but she tried to be ready for it. She considered taking her shirt off—his shirt—and decided against it. Her bra had frayed straps and holes in the cups, and her ribs were probably showing. Another girl might still know how to make that look sexy, but not Ana. She took off her shoes and socks instead, indicating willingness should he return in a receptive mood, but not aggressively enough to provoke him if he came back all, ‘I am not a child molester’. And he wasn’t.

Thirteen was old enough.

She watched the rest of the movie, crying off and on. As the credits rolled, she unwrapped one of the burgers and tried to eat it. She managed only one big bite and then just sat holding it, hating her mother for a lifetime of punishment for ‘stealing’ food. Maybe later, Rider telling her she could have it would be good enough. For now, fresh from the closet, it was all Ana could do to swallow what she’d already chewed. She took the rest into the bathroom, pulled it apart into tiny pieces and flushed it away so he’d think she’d eaten it, then washed her face. 

She looked at herself a long time in the mirror, trying to see a woman, or at least, to not see a fearful child. She hadn’t exactly seen Rider fuck, but she’d heard it a few times through the wall that separated this room from the other bedroom where she slept on those rare nights she slept over. It got loud, even when his girls weren’t. Violent, not in a slappy, angry way, but just in the way of violent sex. She supposed it would hurt, but she could take a punch everywhere else, so she hoped she could take one there too. And he was pretty quick, there was that. Ten, fifteen minutes and it would be over. 

Ana washed her face again, held up her damp hands and watched them until they stopped trembling, then shut off the light and went back into the other room to wait. When she was once more settled on the bed with the empty burger wrapper conspicuously arranged atop the blankets and Species in the VCR, she found herself thinking of David.

Not the way she usually thought about him, child-thoughts still tangled up with Foxy and plastic doubloons, Aunt Easter on the phone telling her he’d gone to live with his father, and Ana’s mother in the kitchen telling her he was dead. No, this was an uncharacteristically specific thought: It was supposed to be David. They were supposed to get married. He’d promised, when she was six and he was seven and they had their whole lives ahead of them and knew just how it would all shake out.

She wondered, as she wondered less and less these days, where he was right now…if he was happy…if he ever thought of her.

Rider had left his pipe on the nightstand. Ana leaned over and picked it up. She relit it, breathing deep and without enjoyment as she studied Gieger’s sex-alien in action with her chosen human prey. Real sex wouldn’t be the same, she knew that. At least, there would be fewer scaly tendrils and spikes. But it was all mechanical, wasn’t it? There were only so many parts and they only fit together so many ways. After that, it was all energy and friction, tension and release.

She smoked, forcing herself to picture Rider naked, to imagine what he must have and how he must use it that made him capable of producing the sounds she’d heard coming out of this room in the night. She smoked until she didn’t care anymore. And then she smoked until she couldn’t care, even if she wanted to.

Time slowed and grew heavy. Sharp edges softened. The pins that held Ana to the board of what was here and now came out, one by one, and somewhere along the way as Species played, she drifted off to sleep.

# * * *

She got the feeling there were many dreams, some spun from memories and others from pure fantasy, all woven together into one tangled ball of thread. She watched some, lived others. They were never entirely stable. She was never entirely safe. 

In the last dream before waking, the one that came in clearest, she was back at Aunt Easter’s house. It hurt to see it, so clear and real that she could almost smell the desert pines and the foul wind that blew in off the quarry. She tried once to wake herself out of it, but managed only to pull the dream into focus around her, and now it could not be stopped. Now it was a nightmare, too.

She could have been any age. This was no memory, only a dream and dreams lied. She could see herself in it, as if she were watching footage taken from a hidden camera, and even that picture was indeterminate. At first, it was day, but then she recalled there had been a fire, sparks rising red into a darkening sky, and instantly, it was evening. She was five, then ten, and then, as if in compromise, around eight-ish. She couldn’t even be certain of the date, although she knew it had to be early October, because there was a cake on the patio table. She was there for David’s birthday. Not his real birthday, of course. This was just the weekend closest to it and the small pretend-celebration he shared with her, before or perhaps after he’d had the real one at Freddy’s.

They were having a cookout in the backyard. Was there ever anything so fine as the smell of woodsmoke in autumn? No, never. The fire had not been long lit; David still had the bucket of hickory chips in one hand, watching the flames lick up around the wood. Golden light glowed on his face, dazzling across the lenses of his glasses so that he seemed to have no eyes at all, just sockets full of fire. And there was Aunt Easter on the other side of the sliding glass door in the kitchen, mixing the burger-meat with her hands. When Ana looked down, she saw an ear of corn in her child-small hands, a basket with more corn on her left, a paper bag for the husks in front of her, and a bowl for the cleaned ears on her right. Corn silk clung to her skirt and her legs, all the way down to her bare feet, stained reddish by the mountain soil she’d been running on earlier, chasing David through the trees, playing pirates.

Had this really happened? There were too many details to be anything but a memory, yet she knew she was dreaming. Corn was summer-food. This was fall. The leaves were turning red and falling right in front of her eyes, raining blood all over the mountainside and swirling away toward the quarry like water down the sink.

As she watched, she heard a car drive up, the sound of tires crunching over gravel much louder than it ever could have been in life, ominous, like thunder in a clear sky. Ana peeled a dry leaf away from the ear of corn in her hand; it crumbled apart, spilling between her fingers and over her feet, leaving her with a handful of corn silk and white kernels, yellow hair and teeth.

“Hello, hello!” a man called. He appeared—Ana could not quite see from where, whether he’d come through the house or around it—shrugging out of his purple jacket as he walked. He tossed it through the open sliding door onto the kitchen table and continued on his way to the inset brick barbeque pit grown-Ana would rebuild a hundred times over without ever being fully conscious of why the design had lodged in her mind.

“A very merry unbirthday!” this man said, ruffling up David’s hair.

David stood for it the same way he stood when his mother licked her thumb to wipe away a smudge of dirt on his face, but Ana giggled. She had seen _Alice In Wonderland_ and read _Through the Looking Glass_ , so when the man glanced at her, she shyly said, “To me?”

“To you!” he agreed and ruffled her hair too. Hers was almost as short as David’s right now (she couldn’t be eight, then; the only people who ever cut her hair were the hospital people who shaved it when she got stitches), shorter but thicker, and messier. “A very merry unbirthday to us all! Oh, wow, look at all this hair. Where are you getting it?”

Ana squirmed, twisting corn husks, wanting to hug and to be hugged, unsure of protocol. “I don’t know.”

“Me neither, but you need to send about half of it back. Come here.” He hunkered, arms open, and Ana flung herself against his welcome chest, burying her face against his purple shirt and scraping her lips on his stubbly cheek. Groaning as grown-ups do, he stood and rocked her twice before flinging her up into the sky so that she hovered for just a moment, entirely airborne, flying, before dropping safe into his hands again. Another hug, hard enough to hurt her ribs, and then he set her on her feet. “What’s in the bowl?”

“Cider.”

“Mmm. Go dip me out a mug, would you? And what about you?” he asked, now turning to Aunt Easter, who was just stepping out on the patio with her plate of hamburger patties. They dripped, writhing and raw. “You going to say hello?”

“Just waiting until you can do it right,” she said, wiping the blood off her hands before going to meet him. 

They kissed grown-up kisses, right on the lips. Ana could see their tongues, licking all over in each other’s mouths. Gross.

“Can you stay?” Aunt Easter asked softly, still hugging him.

“For a few hours. Not all night. No, no,” he said as Aunt Easter made disappointed sounds. “He’s too stressed. Not eating, not sleeping, self-medicating. He needs me.”

“Poor baby. What’s wrong?”

“Oh, the usual legal drama just getting more dramatic, and now I guess the kid’s starting to ask where Daddy is. Abby keeps calling, wanting him to fly out and see them.”

“He should go.”

“No,” said the man with a laugh and scowl at the same time. “No, he should bring them both the fuck back is what he should do, and if I only knew where she fucking was, I’d go get her myself. He had no business letting her leave in the first place. Granted, she’s a whiny bitch and Randy’s dumb as a bag of cheese soup, but if he wanted them gone so bad, he should have told me, not sent them to the ends of the fucking Earth. They were mine more than they were his and he knew it! God! You know, I love him, but sometimes he makes me so mad, I could just kill him!”

Aunt Easter made hushing sounds, looking past him to Ana and David.

The man glanced their way and sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Angry words, o let them never. I’ll be good.”

“You’re always good,” said Aunt Easter and they kissed some more. “How was it at work today?”

“Pretty quiet. The mom came around and asked some questions, but she’s not quite to the freaking-out phase yet. Kind of a wild kid. I don’t think this is the first time he’s taken off.”

“And how are…they?”

“Fine. They’re fine. I keep telling you,” he added, laughing as he put her out of his arms and took his cup of cider from waiting Ana’s hands. “Why do you keep asking?”

“They just don’t seem like they’re acting right.”

“Like, how? What exactly are they doing?”

Aunt Easter shook her head, looking uncomfortable. Ana, feeling the same way, crept up to her side and took her hand, leaning into her hip. Aunt Easter’s smile as she smoothed Ana’s perpetually flyaway hair was drawn on, unreal. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. I catch them looking at me sometimes. And last week—”

“Oh, well, _looking_ at you.” The man caught Ana’s eye and rolled his, inviting her to laugh along at her silly aunt. Ana managed a small smile. “I had no idea it had gone that far. They’re looking, huh? Thank God you told me. We’ll put a stop to that, won’t we, Ana? We’ll pop their little eyes right out.”

“Your father came into the office last week.”

The man kept smiling, but Ana could see his eyebrows pinch slightly. “Oh yeah?”

“He knew it was me. He could see me. He came right in anyway.”

The man glanced at his cider as if he’d forgotten he was holding it. He took a sip, watching Aunt Easter over the rim of the cup. “And?” he said once he’d swallowed. “What did he do?”

“Nothing. He just—”

“Looked at you.”

“It was the way he was looking at me. The things he was thinking.”

“Uh oh, looking _and_ thinking,” he said, but his teasing tone was as drawn on as Aunt Easter’s smile. He nudged aside the basket that minutes ago had held corn and that now held dozens of naked plastic dolls, and sat down, pulling Ana onto his knee. “I’ll talk to him. I’m sure it’s nothing, but in the meantime…you know, maybe keep the music box wound.” 

“You said I didn’t have to worry about that.”

“You don’t, but if he’s getting a kick out of making you nervous, you got to kick back to get him to quit. Just type in the debug code and it’ll autoplay all night. No big deal.” 

“I don’t know any of that computer stuff, you know that.”

“It’s not rocket science,” the man said with a laugh. “Exit out to the main menu. You’ll see a picture of the band in the background. Poke Freddy in the nose. When you hear the honking sound, type ‘musicboxon’ like it’s all one word and hit enter. You won’t see a prompt or hear a noise, but when you tab back into security mode and tap over to the prize counter, you should see the timer isn’t winding down anymore. Got it?”

“Can’t you just come with me and talk to them?”

“Good,” he said, just like Aunt Easter had nodded ‘yes’. He had another drink of cider, then held the cup for Ana to have a sip. It was hot and sweet. “Anything else?”

“The older ones are walking around.”

“No kidding.” He laughed, a pleased and surprised sound. “Well, they’re probably just bored. If they want to play, let ‘em.”

“During the daytime.”

Again, his brows pinched. “Huh. Okay, that definitely qualifies as weird. I guess I’ll have a look at them tomorrow.”

“Look at all of them. Please!” she pressed even as he blew a hard sigh up at the sky. “The guests are starting to complain about the way they stare and how they sometimes follow people around. I try to talk to them, but they don’t listen to me like they do you! They just laugh at me!”

“All right, all right. I’ll give them all a stern talking-to. Happy?”

Before Aunt Easter could answer, David let out a groan and called, “Mom, you said we could start the barbeque when he got here! He’s here! Aren’t we _ever_ going to make the burgers?”

“David!”

“That’s my boy, a slave to instant gratification,” the man said, looking back at David. Louder, he called, “You’ve got to wait for the coals to get hot.”

“They’re hot now,” David argued, holding his hand over the flames to prove it. “It’s fire. Fire’s hot.”

“Hot enough to burn you,” the man replied. “Not enough to cook you.”

Aunt Easter leaned over his shoulder to murmur in his ear. Ana couldn’t hear what she said, just that it contained the word ‘hot’ and made the man glance back at her with a crooked sort of smile.

“Oh yeah?” he said, slipping an arm around her waist. He moved Ana away and pulled Aunt Easter, giggling like a child herself, into the place he had made for her. “And how are you going to do that, hmm? You got a barbeque grill somewhere I don’t know about?”

“Maybe,” said Aunt Easter, her eyes shining as she put her arms around his neck.

“Maybe. And where are you hiding it? Hmm? Is it here?” The man tickled at her tummy. “Or is it here?” His fingers skipped over her hip and down her kicking thigh, then slipped between her knees and up beneath her skirt. “Or is it…here?” he asked, smiling, as Aunt Easter gasped and giggled.

David glared at them as they kissed, then turned away and stabbed at the fire with his stick.

“Mmm, that does feel pretty hot,” the man said. His arm moved, making Aunt Easter’s skirt bulge and roll in dangerous new shapes. “But I don’t know if it’s hot enough to cook on. Hmmm. If only there was something I could stick in there to check the temperature. Hmmm.”

“Do you want to go upstairs?” Aunt Easter asked, her own hands restless and traveling. 

He tsked, shaking his head with a cheerful scowl. “This is supposed to be a birthday party, not a booty call.”

“Please. I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“You see me every day.”

“At work.”

“And at play.”

“But not at home.”

The man’s smile widened, but his eyes narrowed and he did something with his hidden hand that made Aunt Easter flinch and look at him with wide, wounded eyes. “Don’t you nag me, Mary-Mary-Quite-Contrary. This was the arrangement. He needs me.”

“I need you. Your son needs you.”

The man let out a low, lazy laugh and raised his voice slightly to call, “You need me, David?” as he gazed into Aunt Easter’s flushed face.

“No,” said David and hit the fire.

“No. He’s a little lion, doesn’t need anyone or anything. And you—” He tapped her on the nose with his free hand. “—shouldn’t hide behind him. Taking advantage of a vulnerable child is quite possibly the worst thing anyone can do. For shame.”

“Please.” Aunt Easter shifted to her knees, sitting on him, his hand still under her skirt. She clasped her hands together beneath her chin and buried her face against his shoulder, shivering as if she were cold. “Please!”

“Again.”

“Please. Please, don’t tease. Please, do…”

“Do what? What do you want me to do, Mary-Mary? Hmm?” His arm flexed. He must have pinched her; she let out a cry and although she didn’t struggle, she couldn’t seem to hold still. The man watched her writhe the same way David watched the spiders he sometimes trapped and took apart, leg by leg. “And what will you do to earn it?”

Aunt Easter raised her head, blonde hair like corn silk tumbling all around, bloody in the firelight. “Anything.”

“Mm.” The man looked suddenly straight at Ana, once more smiling broadly as he took his hand out from under Aunt Easter’s skirt and pushed his finger into Aunt Easter’s mouth. “Isn’t she pretty?” he asked. 

Ana nodded, but retreated, confused by the strength of her own inexplicable discomfort. David did not look around when she took his hand, just kept smacking sparks out of the fire. 

“Like I always say…there is nothing as beautiful as a woman on her knees, begging. All right, come on.” The man sat up, giving Aunt Easter a playful swat on the bottom as she scrambled off him and dashed inside. “Let’s go upstairs. David, you keep an eye on those coals, okay?”

David tossed his hair in something that might have been a nod.

Ana watched through the sliding glass door as they walked away together. Halfway down the hall, the man caught Aunt Easter’s hand and pulled her back to him like he was going to yell at her, only to kiss her some more. He touched her in grabby, hurt-looking ways, fingers squeezing and twisting and pushing. Ana couldn’t tell if he was angry or not, but Aunt Easter was laughing when she finally escaped, laughing when she ran upstairs. He followed, not running, unbuttoning his shirt as he walked. When he swung around the ornate post at the foot of the stairs and noticed Ana still at the patio door, watching, he leaned all the way over the bannister and waggled his fingers at her, then ran up, taking the steps two and three at a time.

“What’s going on?” Ana asked.

David watched the fire and didn’t answer.

Not knowing what else to do, Ana returned to her chair and picked up a doll. She shucked it like corn, pulling off arms and legs. Silky strands of hair clung to her clothes and skin, impossible to remove completely. She put the doll, ready for grilling, in the bowl and picked up another one.

Through Aunt Easter’s open bedroom window came a moan, long and low and full of pain. In the desert, as if in answer, coyotes laughed and rose up on their hind legs to dance.

Ana listened, fearflesh prickling up her arms and spine, tightening her scalp. “What’s going on?” she asked again.

“They’re having sex.”

“What’s that?”

David looked at her for what felt like a long time before turning his stare back on the fire. “I don’t know.”

Aunt Easter moaned again.

“Why is she making that sound?” Ana asked. Her voice cracked a little. She touched her eyes and found them dry for the moment, but the tears were there, hiding. 

“It hurts.”

“Should we do something? Should we call 9-1-1?”

David was already shaking his head. “It’s not like that.”

“But you said—”

“It supposed to hurt. Like going to the doctor.” David jerked one shoulder in an angry shrug. “It’s just something grown-ups do.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he said grimly. “They’re supposed to do it if it’s someone they really like, and if they’re dating or if they get married, then they have to.”

In the cold wake of this information, Aunt Easter’s moans grew louder, shorter, until she almost seemed to be crying. Ana’s own throat tightened. Her stomach knotted. Her lungs ached. She could not imagine the hurt that could make those sounds…but she wouldn’t have to imagine forever, would she? She and David were going to get married someday. He’d promised. Had that already happened yet? Was she still eight? It felt as if she’d slipped away into a younger body, even as David grew taller, older. Ana looked at the cake for clues, but the letters spelled out in frosting across its face were nonsensical. It seemed at first they said _Let’s Eat!_ but when she looked again, they were all Vs and As, sugar-teeth, and then nothing at all, just colored sprinkles on white buttercream.

David glanced at her, then frowned and sat up straighter. “We don’t have to,” he said, so he must have already made his promise. “We’ll just…tell people we’re doing it. But don’t have to, really. Who’s going to know?”

Ana didn’t argue, but she didn’t agree either. Grown-ups knew everything.

“I’d never hurt you,” he said, and the next thing Ana knew, they were sitting together on the low brick wall much later, with the sky full dark and crumbs of cake on paper plates beside them, watching red sparks fall upward into the stars. On the other end of the patio, Aunt Easter and the man she sometimes called ‘honey’ and sometimes ‘Erik’ shared a lounge chair that was too small for the two of them. His purple shirt was on, but completely unbuttoned; Aunt Easter’s hand moved up and down along his stomach, like he was a cat she was petting. Aunt Easter’s skirt kept catching the wind and rippling up higher around her hip; the man petted her, too. Their voices were low and laughing. They kissed a lot. They were both so young and pretty and happy. If it hurt very much to do the sex-thing, it didn’t seem to keep on hurting after it was over.

She turned to say so, but David was gone. In his place sat a giant-sized Freddy-bear, old and torn and filthy. His purple top hat was charred on one side. The microphone he held in his loose grip was rusty and half-melted. He had no eyes, only black holes full of wires.

“If someone hurt me,” Fredbear rumbled, staring blindly into the fire. This was not that memory and they both seemed to know it. His form shimmered, growing hazy enough to let her see the boy within, eleven years old in a torn t-shirt and paper mask, then grew solid around him once more. “If someone hurt me, would you hurt them back?” he asked, as David would ask years later, just days before he slipped that plastic doubloon into her hand and sent her off to kill her mother, days before he disappeared. “If someone…hurt me…”

Ana leaned into his golden fur and tucked up her bare legs under her skirt. “It’s okay,” she whispered, watching the fire as her eyelids grew heavy. She was tired, even in her dream…and she knew she was dreaming now, just as she knew she was dreaming that dream too. Layers upon layers of unreality and time separating this moment from that one far in the future, past eight-year-old Ana at Aunt Easter’s house and thirteen-year-old Ana in Rider’s bed to grown-Ana in the basement of the Mammon Public Library, but it was all true, whether it had really happened or not, and it needed to be said. “It’s okay. You can do the sex-thing to me when we’re married.”

“I…I don’t want…want to hurt you.”

“I know, but you love me.” She took his huge, worn paw in her hand and watched his fingers slowly curl around it. “If you really love someone, it’s okay to hurt them.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING! This book contains strong adult themes, including adult language, drug and alcohol references, graphic depictions of child abduction, violence towards children and adults, graphic gore violence and explicit sexual content. You have been warned.

# CHAPTER TWO

The hand that reached out of the dark to grip sleeping Ana’s shoulder was not a rotted cloth bear paw, but just a hand. Warm. Alive. Slightly pudgy. A hand that wiped noses and cut the crusts off sandwiches. Mrs. Pickett’s hand, she of the Duckling Daycare.

Ana peered into that familiar face as she struggled to rub the sleep out of her own, not sure yet where she was or why, only that she had a headache of the sort that had swelled all the way out of her skull and spread halfway down her spine. 

“This is not the place for that, dear,” Mrs. Pickett said, hushed and smiling. 

“Sorry,” Ana mumbled. “Couldn’t sleep last night.”

“Well, it looks like you might manage now. Why don’t you go home and give it a try?” The older woman patted the shoulder where her soft hand still rested, then walked away.

Ana watched her go, orienting herself to beige walls, florescent lights, grey filing cabinets and shelves filled with paper binders in every color of the office-supply rainbow. She was in the basement of the Mammon Public Library. In the morgue, to use Mike Schmidt’s words, one not for dead bodies, but for dead print. So now she knew where she was, but why? She’d gone home, hadn’t she?

She was tired, so tired, and the dream was slow to fade, blurring the lenses of her mind as she tried to look back at the events of the past twenty-four hours. She could remember Freddy’s, the sheer normalcy of her time there standing out in sharp contrast against the craziness to come. She could remember Mike Schmidt and the things he’d told her over that long night. She could remember driving home and sitting in her truck as the sun climbed through the trees, sobbing into her hands because she didn’t want to go inside. After that, things got blurry, but at some point, she’d decided to put her own mad research skills to work confirming Mike’s story.

She turned in her plastic chair and looked at the monitor in front of her on the cheap library table. Not a computer monitor. Not even a TV. A microfiche monitor. She hadn’t even known those were still around. She might have said so; she had the fuzzy memory of the acne-riddled ginger who’d led her down here telling her the digital age was not the friend of libraries. On the screen was a smudgy copy of the town newspaper, the Mammon Minute. May 20, 1976. The headliners of the day were an impending tax reform vote, what a great day it had been for kayaking in the canyon the previous weekend, and the three hundred seventy-three dollars the Old Hens Quilting Club had raised with their raffle to support the local ward’s summer camp program. 

Ana read it all again, at least enough of it to know no one was looking for any missing kids, then leaned back in the uncomfortable plastic chair and looked at the spiral notebook beside the microfiche monitor. It was a child’s notebook, wide-ruled, with the Batman logo on the front cover. The first pages were filled up with notes on the American Revolution, information on the life-cycle of the frog, vocabulary words, penmanship lines, math problems, and doodles. The last five pages with David’s scrawling handwriting on it were all variations of the same letter: _Dear Charlotte. Timmy Ulster told me that Mandy Farr told you that I like you. I do not like you. I do not know why Mandy would say that unless she is just a liar. I guess there are other boys named David so maybe Mandy thought it was one of them who likes you, but I do not think so because I know all the boys and no one likes you. Please stop telling people that I like you or we will have to fight. Your friend, David Blaylock._ The next page after this rather ruthless little epistle had been torn out. If he had not delivered it by way of Timmy and Mandy to Charlotte, it might still be somewhere in his room, neatly folded and sealed with a sticker, as all of David’s most important correspondence had been prepared.

After that was a single blank page to separate the past from the present, followed by several pages covered front and back with Ana’s own handwriting. Looking at it, she could now remember sitting in Gallifrey’s with a cup of coffee and the remains of a bacon omelet, carefully transcribing names, birth dates and last-seen dates out of Mike Schmidt’s black binder. She was glad now that she had. She doubted Mrs. Pickett’s smile would have been as warm if she’d seen that stack of missing persons posters.

Ana’s eye moved down the page now, seeing without reading, until she came to the next name without a check in front of it. Nami Lin, age 15. By May 20, 1976, the date in the corner of the preserved newspaper in front of her, Nami had been missing for two and a half weeks. So far, the Minute had not mentioned her. In fact, the only name with a star instead of a check beside it so far was Billy Blaylock’s own. The Minute had dutifully reported his little bones washing up on the banks of the canyon river just as Mike had said. _Tragic Fate of Runaway Boy Learned_. Pointed reference to an inattentive and now absent mother, who had allowed her son to read adventure comics that often cast children as heroes. Statements from grandparents confirming his love of exploring and adding that the reading material of Billy’s surviving twin sisters were much more closely monitored under their watch. The short article ended with the announcement of a meeting for mothers at the library where members of the Relief Society would discuss the growing threat of comics, cartoons and other disreputable media.

So. Out of the maybe sixty people Mike insisted were missing by this point on the timeline, only Billy Blaylock had warranted a mention in the Minute, and only because he’d been found. Ana knew not every missing person got full-scale media coverage, but in a town Mammon’s size, when so many of them were children, the silence just did not make sense. If nothing else, it should have been a Stranger Danger seminar at the library that day and not a lecture on the evil influence of Atom Boy or Tintin.

It made a girl wonder how hard it was to put together your own fake missing person poster.

Ana rewound and removed the microfiche, switched off the machine, tucked her notebook back in her day pack, and went upstairs.

The matronly librarian, her gangly ginger assistant, and Mrs. Pickett were all together by the check-out counter. Otherwise, the building appeared to be empty. Four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, the library was not the happening place to be, even in a town like Mammon.

“Find everything you need?” the librarian asked, interrupting the quiet conversation to turn a broad smile and narrow eye on Ana.

“No,” Ana admitted, returning the smile to the best of her skull-throbbing abilities. “But sometimes not finding something tells you something too, doesn’t it? Sorry,” she said again, running a hand through her hair so they could all stop pretending it wasn’t bedhead. “Not in the habit of sleeping in public. Something about all that blurry black and white print just put me right out.”

“What were you looking for?” the librarian asked.

“Oh, you know.” Bunch of dead kids. “Just trying to figure out what happened to some people.”

“In the newspaper?” the ginger asked.

“Yeah,” said Ana, managing a smile to let him know she thought it was a dumb idea too and it was okay to laugh. God, her head hurt. “It was a while ago and I couldn’t really think of anyone I could ask. Honestly, I’m not even sure these people existed.”

“Did you try the genealogy database?” he wanted to know.

Ana blinked. “What?”

The three of them exchanged a group glance beneath an invisible thought-bubble in which the words _non-Mormons_ floated in an ironic font. Comic sans, perhaps.

“I’ll show you,” Mrs. Pickett offered. “It’s downstairs, next to the old-print room. You walked right past the door.”

Ana made a few you-don’t-have-to noises, but Mrs. Pickett would not be deterred and soon they were back downstairs, just one door down from the old-print morgue in the room that housed Mammon’s genealogical records.

“I hope you’re not claustrophobic,” Mrs. Pickett said cheerfully, leading her sideways down the very narrow aisle between the stacks toward the computers at the rear of the room. “I never used to be, but I have to admit, I have my twinges down here.”

“It could be worse,” Ana said politely, not at all sure that was true.

“It certainly could. I still remember when all we had was the records room at the church. I can’t even imagine trying to shoehorn all this back in there and it’s only getting bigger.”

Ana’s tired ears pricked. “Is it? Someone told me the town was getting smaller.”

“I suppose we have thinned out, but to be honest, I’d rather see it happen this way than see our beautiful town paved over and turned into some big city with all those big city problems. Traffic. Delinquency. School shootings. No,” she said with a dramatic shudder. “I like this town just the way it is, where the most violence we ever see are a few fistfights on the playground.” 

Ana frowned.

“But it has gotten quieter,” the other woman admitted. “You know how it is. The young ones move away and the old ones die. And if no one knows what to do with the grandparents’ genealogy work, it ends up here. It really has become impossible, hasn’t it? At least we only have to muddle along another year.”

“Yeah, I heard you’re moving downtown soon,” said Ana, remembering what Mike Schmidt had said. 

“Did you? Oh, that’s right. You’re probably going to be putting it up, aren’t you? I want you to know, I’ve had so many compliments about the work you did at the daycare.”

“Thanks.”

“I confess, I wasn’t sure what to think about you when we first met. It just goes to show you can never judge a book by its cover. Do you think you’ll do the shelves at the new library?”

Unwilling to get into the long, sordid story of how she’d lost her job, Ana simply said, “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, I don’t mean the _library_ -library. I know Willard has that one.” she said with an expressive little sniff. “I hate to think what he did to pull that plum out of the pie. Villart Construction, ha. His so-called handyman service was nothing but a bunch of gigolos looking for lonely women who’d pay to see a boy prance around the yard with his shirt off for an hour. I used to wipe that boy’s bottom and let me tell you, twenty-two years later, the only thing that’s changed is the hole it comes out of. Shame on me,” Mrs. Pickett said immediately. “Forget I said that, dear. But it is a pity Shelly lost the library. His men may not look as good with their shirts off, but they get the job done. And I would love to see what you could do with the children’s section. If only you’d been here last year…but no, I mean the real library, the _genealogy_ library. Have you seen it?”

“Seen it? We’re in it, aren’t we?”

“I mean the new one. Wait here.” Sitting Ana at one of the two computers sharing this narrow table, Mrs. Pickett bustled back up the aisle and peeled a poster-board off the wall. She returned to show it to Ana—the proposed layout of the new genealogy building slated for downtown. “What do you think?”

Ana studied it, her brain slow to make the shift from missing children to construction, but once it had… 

“If you can’t say something nice?” Mrs. Pickett guessed brightly.

“I’m sure it’ll be more functional than this place,” said Ana, trying to hand the poster back.

Mrs. Pickett didn’t take it. “That’s not much of an endorsement. It’s painfully mediocre, isn’t it? You can say so.”

“Inefficient was the word I was thinking.” Ana battled her professional interest and lost. “This room is, what? 400 square feet? And no offense, but this place is completely fu—uh, unworkable. Now, the new place is 1200, but you can’t count the bathroom…and the computers eat up a lot of usable space with desks and chairs…and this guy’s filled up the rest of it with storage. Basically, you’re looking at this room all over again, only the overflow is in filing cabinets instead of cardboard boxes.”

Mrs. Pickett sat at the other computer, knees together, impishly smiling. “My thoughts exactly. I don’t suppose it’s the sort of problem you can fix with a better bookcase, but I can’t help feeling like it’s not much of an improvement.” 

“Funny you should say that, because a better bookcase is exactly what you need,” Ana said, digging into her pack for her tablet. She fired up the roombuilder, created a shell equal to the proposed space and loaded in some accessories. “What you want to do is slap up some sliding stacks. That way, you could put ten, twelve units along that wall instead of the six he’s giving you.”

“Sliding?”

“Yeah. You put them front to back instead of side to side like this, and you slide them back and forth on a—” Ana interrupted herself with a jaw-cracking yawn. “On a track-line. Sorry. Anyway, you put the computer bay in this area, line that wall with storage and maybe put up some drop-shelves for the stuff you don’t access as often. Hell—I mean, heck, you organize it right and you’ve got enough space here for a little sitting area or whatever with some toys in case someone’s got to bring their kids. See?”

Mrs. Pickett took the tablet, but looked at Ana. “And how much would something like this cost?”

“Oh, I don’t know. This is going downtown on the strip, so I’m sure you’ve got the exterior design planned out and I’m sure not equipped to do the foundation work, but if you handed me that shell, pre-built and plumbed, I could probably make the insides happen for twenty, thirty thousand dollars.”

Mrs. Pickett kept smiling, but something in her eyes changed. “Really,” she said at last.

“Hey, certain costs are just what they are,” Ana said with a sigh, and counted it off on her fingers. “Even assuming windows and doors come with the shell, interior work means sheetrock, wiring, sub-flooring, paint, lumber and hardware, and last but certainly not least, permits and inspections. Then you factor in the stuff like light fixtures, flooring, the bathroom, the shelves and all the other eye-candy that’s difficult to price sight unseen. I mean, you can get carpet for pennies or a couple bucks a square yard, depending on what you like the looks of and how much you’re willing to settle. And all that’s before I even do the labor. A girl’s got to eat, you know. And if it’s me all by myself with just the gear I’ve got, it’s going to take at least three weeks, maybe as much as six, so those labor costs do rack up.”

“And all of that is included in your estimate?” Now Mrs. Picket looked at the tablet, her eyes skipping back and forth to the posterboard. “Mm-hm.”

“If it’s just the shelves you want, I could get that up for you in one weekend for five or six thousand, but we can talk about that some other time, right?” Ana put out her hand.

Mrs. Pickett gave her tablet back, still smiling. “Let’s get you started,” she said, and switched on Ana’s computer. “So ordinarily, I wouldn’t pry, but may I ask…?”

“I’m just…fact-checking,” Ana said. “I’m not going to interfere with these people, if I even find them. I’m not even going to write anything down. Girl scout’s honor.”

“I don’t remember you in the scouts!” Mrs. Pickett said, surprised.

“Okay, you got me. I never was, but I like to think I have at least as much honor as those little extortionists with their stale, over-priced cookies.”

Mrs. Pickett laughed, which was nice of her. The genealogy program was fairly user-friendly and it wasn’t long before Ana had the hang of it. Mrs. Pickett retreated to a polite distance as Ana flipped back to the first page of her list of missing people and entered the first one into the search bar. When the screen promptly pulled up an entry, Mrs. Pickett asked if she was going to be all right on her own.

“Yeah,” Ana said faintly. John Satoris, born February 7th, 1959, the third of six children. He was real, all right. And although there was nothing here that said definitively he had ever gone missing, his absence was there like a shadow behind the official account of his life. His parents and one sister were dead; not Johnny. His siblings were married, with kids and even grandkids of their own; not Johnny. All had been baptized once at birth and again at the age of Mormon accountability, eight; not Johnny. No, the word ‘missing’ was nowhere to be found on his file, but he was.

Ana’s adventures in microfiche had sapped much of her enthusiasm for research and her headache had drained the rest, but when the second, third, fourth and fifth names all turned up similar results, apprehension took its place and was just as energizing in its own dark way.

However, when she reached the end of the first page, she stopped. It didn’t seem worth it to keep looking. Of all the names Mike had given her, the only ones not in the database were the out-of-towners. All the others were here, and all with the same disturbing question mark at the end of their lives. That did not prove the animatronics at Freddy’s were coming to life and eating them—at least one guy on Mike’s list was at the bottom of the quarry and for that matter, Ana’s own name was right there, between David’s and her mother’s—but what were the alternatives, really? The idea that Mike Schmidt had scoured the Mammon registry to add plausibility to his Freddy’s ghost story was just as hard to believe. How crazy did a story have to be before the most sensible explanation was that a father-son team had killed more than three hundred people over a period of fifty years in a small town without anyone suspecting them? She didn’t believe it.

“What would you believe?” Ana asked. Her voice in the empty room startled her, an unusual occurrence after a lifetime of talking to herself. She tried to shut up, but the internal pressure kept building as she sat in that room full of dead people on paper and finally, she just had to say it: “Is there any proof that would be proof enough? Or have you already made up your mind that you don’t want it to be true so it won’t be?”

If that were the case, it would have been easier to just go home, drink herself blind as planned, and do her best to forget Mike Schmidt had ever existed. But she’d come here, where she knew damn well she ran the risk, however unlikely, of corroborating rather than disproving Mike’s story. And while it was true she hadn’t done the former, she hadn’t done the latter either.

The problem, thought Ana, was that it was all circumstantial. Missing wasn’t dead, posters were only paper, videos could be tampered with, Nate Donahue could be a very convincing hired actor and Mike Schmidt could be a pathological liar. She needed her own first-hand witness. 

After a long moment, Ana typed Jeremy Fitzgerald into the search bar. She didn’t have a birthday for him, but Mammon was a small town and there was only one Fitzgerald family. As expected, there was no marriage for young Jeremy, no kids and no date of death, but it wasn’t really Jeremy she wanted. 

Mother, Jill Meredith Morgan, died when Jeremy was ten. Some kids had all the luck. And father, Jackson Ulysses Fitzgerald, once a teacher, then a janitor, and finally…dead. In 1996. No other relatives.

Well, shit.

Her association with Mr. Fitzgerald had been a thin one, but it was something. What was she supposed to do? Cold call the surviving family of each of these three hundred and fifty-seven missing people until she found someone who didn’t call her a sick bitch and hang up on her? Well, she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. As Mike had said, whatever had happened in this town had left old wounds. She couldn’t justify ripping them open just to soothe her freshly bruised conscience.

And yet, here was Ana, picking up her notebook and looking down her list of names. What was she hoping to find, a friend? Even if she’d had any apart from David, that bond was unlikely to have come through the past twenty years strong enough to withstand a frank discussion of how their missing brother/mother/uncle/girlfriend died at Freddy’s, and did they think it was a serial killer, a haunted animatronic, or a zombie serial killer possessing the body of a bunny suit? There wasn’t a friend in the world who wouldn’t punch her dead in the face.

Smiling, Ana started to close the notebook, only to open it again with a thoughtful expression as a name caught her eye.

“So,” she mused aloud, “if not a friend…what about an enemy?”

Lisa Rutter. Set out for Orlando at seven years old, if she was remembering that right, at least according to the cops. According to Mike, she’d walked into Fredbear’s Family Diner and never walked out again.   
But Ana could think of at least one other person who might have a theory of her own.

Ana typed it into the computer and found, apart from the usual empty spaces where a husband and kids should be, little Lisa’s family tree. Small family, for a Mormon. Father, mother and big sister, Winifred. Hell of a name to give a girl. No wonder she went by Wendy. She had been married to a man named Robert Pearson for about ten years, but there were no kids and she was a Rutter again now. Ana wasn’t sure if the black bar severing the line between them in the records meant a death or a divorce, but it didn’t matter. The important thing was that they knew each other. 

‘Yeah, she knows you,’ she told herself sternly. ‘She knows you as the person who sicced a lawyer on her, who humiliated her on camera, and then as that person who called her a bitch in front of her coworkers because your truck got towed. Which of those episodes do you really think is going to make her open up to you about her dead sister?’

“Oh what the hell,” said Ana, logging out and switching off the computer. “She already hates me. Might as well give her a good reason.”

# * * *

Much later, as Ana lay in the Purple Man’s arms, drowsing toward an unhappy sleep, her hazy thoughts would return again and again to all the moments that had to align just so to put her on Wendy Rutter’s doorstep. They twinkled in her mind, like stars, forming pictures across her inner sky: If she’d never posted that ad on Craigslist. If Mike Schmidt had never seen it. If she’d never gone to meet him. If she’d gone home and dropped pills and booze until she forgot him. These were the brightest lights, but that was just the beginning. Why had she even gone to the library in the first place? What had compelled her to stop on her way out to chat up the locals? Why was there still a public pay phone outside the supermarket in the smart-phone-riddled year of 2015 and what were the odds the town directory would still be more or less intact? What was a town commissioner doing listed in the white pages like any common slob? And above all else, why, when Ana knocked on her door, did Wendy Rutter let her in?

It was a relatively nice house, for Mammon. Red brick ranch-style with flowers in the front garden, veggies in the back, and herbs growing in the windowboxes. The grass was freshly-cut. The mat before the door said Welcome. So it was pleasant enough, but it was small. 

Mammon was not a wealthy town and its homes tended toward the small, but Rutter was a town commissioner. On each of their previous encounters, she had been smartly dressed and immaculately styled. Ana was not one of those women who got wet at the thought of shoes, but she had lived in SoCal long enough to know the difference between the kind that cost twenty bucks and the kind that put you in the hospital when your man found out where you spent the mortgage money. Mrs. Rutter obviously enjoyed living the life of…how did Chad put it that one time? A small-town big fish. A two-bedroom brick in a cul-de-sac of identical homes seemed inconsistent with her chosen lifestyle.

But Ana couldn’t just sit out at the curb all night staring at it, so after rehearsing a few excuses for knocking on the wrong door and startling some strange Mormon family during the dinner hour, Ana got out of her truck and walked up the drive.

She could hear a television going on the other side, and whoever was watching it could hear her boots clump across the pleasant porch because the sound muted even before Ana knocked.

Ana had, by this time, been awake nearly two days straight, with only that one short lapse in the library and another even shorter nap at Freddy’s before this whole nightmare began. She had long ago passed the point of exhaustion and had reached that dream-like stage where nothing seemed to matter as much as, or connect to, the immediate idea in her head. It was like being high in its own way, except more dangerous, since Ana always knew when she was high and even during the most dramatic trips, had always been able to keep herself more or less tethered to reality by reminding herself of that fact. She knew she was tired now, but she had failed to appreciate just how that might be affecting her until she knocked on Wendy Rutter’s door.

Then, and only then, did the cloud of exhaustion lift, allowing the piercing clarity of a single thought through, like a ray of light directly in her eyes: ‘I am making a huge mistake.’ She put a hand on her heart, feeling it pound with fingers that trembled, and looked up again as the door opened.

Even at home and plainly not expecting company, Mrs. Rutter dressed well. The room behind her was clean and tasteful. She wore no shoes; she’d had a recent pedicure. Her toenails were painted a playful, glittery shade of pink—a secret not to be shared with the likes of Ana. She still wore her wedding ring.

Mrs. Rutter spoke first, without emotion but with the faintest hint of relief. It was a voice Ana knew well, the voice of a woman who has been expecting the worst for so long, she’s almost grateful to finally receive it. “You found it.”

It made no sense to Ana and she didn’t think it was just her lack of sleep.

Before she could think of a response, Wendy lifted her chin and coolly inquired, “Is this blackmail?”

“What? No! What are you talking about?”

The other woman’s mouth thinned as she continued to stare Ana down and continued not to see whatever it was she was looking for. The animosity in her eyes did not soften, but confusion gradually eclipsed it and at last, she said, “What do you want?”

Ana stood there, trying desperately to think of some way to hammer her thoughts into words and words into questions. ‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ she thought, too late, and said, “My…aunt.”

Mrs. Rutter’s mouth made a smile while her eyes grew fangs. “What about her?”

Ana’s boots scuffed on the welcome mat, trying to back away without her. She looked at them, then up again, summoning the last of her failing nerve to say, “Who was she?”

Mrs. Rutter’s head tipped back, as if she had to study that from a better distance. She laughed once, dry as paper—missing persons posters, maybe—and stepped back. “Come in.”

‘Run,’ thought Ana. ‘Now, while you can still go home.’

She stepped over the threshold into Wendy Rutter’s pleasant, air-conditioned home and listened to the door close behind her.

“What have you found?” Mrs. Rutter asked, leading her away from the warm colors and comfortable sofa of the nearby living room down a plain hallway. All the walls were pretty plain, come to think of it. No photos of extended family, no Bible verses extolling the virtues of hearth and home and motherhood, just a portrait of Jesus over the fireplace and a couple landscapes to break up space where it got too oppressive.

“Nothing,” said Ana. “It’s the same house I remember, what little I remember of it.”

“Yes, it was a long time ago, for you.” Mrs. Rutter brought her through the other door into a home office. Bookshelves, evenly divided between official-looking binders, law books and religious works, and knick-knacks of the sort people used when they knew they didn’t have enough books but still wanted people to think they had a full bookshelf. Still no family photos, not even on the desk where the most hardened politician kept a little something to remind himself he had a family. “But nothing ever changes here. So. Why have you come to see me?”

“I’ve heard things.”

“Ghosts?” Mrs. Rutter’s matronly lipstick thinned. “If any house could be haunted, it would surely be that one.”

“Of course not. I don’t mean I’ve heard things in the house. I mean, I’ve had people tell me things.”

“What sort of things?”

“I think you know. You’ve said some of them yourself. And that’s not the woman I remember.”

“And you’ve come here to demand a stop to it or you’ll sue for defamation, I suppose.”

“Look, I’m sorry you got butt-hurt because my lawyer stopped you from illegally condemning my house, but that’s not the issue here, so if you can put that behind you for right now, that’d be great.”

Mrs. Rutter looked at her with another of those thin, fanged smiles and gestured toward one of the nice chairs on the supplicant’s side of the desk. “Have a seat.”

Ana did not move. “You said my aunt fucked the devil. Who?”

“What would the name mean to you?” Mrs. Rutter asked with open scorn and a bitterness not entirely directed at her. “It was so long ago, it must not matter anymore. Let dead dogs lie. Who can it help now?”

“Funny sort of attitude for a lady who believes in baptizing the dead.”

Mrs. Rutter let out a short, honest laugh and studied her in smiling silence for a minute. “Your mythology allows for the existence of demons, doesn’t it?” 

“My what?”

Mrs. Rutter nodded at her tattoo.

Ana blinked in confusion at the World Tree on her arm, then let out a laugh of her own. “Lady, this is just ink, it is not representative of my beliefs. And no, for the record, I do not believe in demons. Or ghosts. Or invisible bearded sky-fairies who grant wishes, for that matter. All I want to know is, if you’ve got something real to tell me about my aunt and Erik Metzger, or if this town just got their collective panties in a bunch because they were living in sin.”

“Living in sin? Oh, they certainly were. They wallowed in it, as pigs in their own shit. But of all their sins, I would have to say having a child out of wedlock was the very least of them.”

“Okay,” said Ana and sat down. “This is the part where you stop insinuating and just start talking.”

They stared at each other, keeping distance between them like a spear with a point on each end.

“Did you know him?” Mrs. Rutter asked finally. “You stayed at his house often, as I recall. He didn’t live there at that time, but I’m sure he visited. Do you remember him at all?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I do. I don’t see him very clearly. I was so young…I might be making it up.”

“Are there photographs? I’ve always imagined she must have papered the house with them, kept a shrine in the closet or a life-sized painting over the bed. Did she?”

“No,” said Ana. “There were a few pictures of her and David…and me…but none of them survived the hoard.”

“So you’ve never seen him.”

Ana thought of the Flagship’s grand opening staff photo—the smiling man, purple down to his socks, arm on knee and light flashing off his glasses, giving his eyes an all-white demonic glow. “No.”

Rutter studied her so long, Ana thought she must have let the lie show on her face, but said, “Would you like to?”

Without waiting for an answer, she went to one of the Spartan bookcases and opened a decorative wooden box. Ana could hear paper rustling and small objects tapping together as Rutter reached inside and brought out a folded bit of newspaper. She looked at it herself for a moment before she brought it to Ana; her expression as she did so was so saturated with hate that it was very nearly love.

She folded it again before she passed the paper over, so that Ana had to unfold it, giving her that extra time before the reveal—the hush before the curtain goes up, the winding of the box before the _(puppet)_ jack jumps out, the lizard pausing to wash its dusty eyes before the trapdoor opens and the spider bites.

Ana steeled herself to look the devil in the eye and unfolded the paper.

She thought she would see something to do with Freddy’s, maybe even the same photograph Mike had shown her; he had to have gotten it from somewhere. But at first, she didn’t see Erik at all. She saw Aunt Easter.

She was young in this picture, her blonde hair tumbling over her shoulder to blanket the baby in her arms, and even as physically drained as her labor had obviously left her, she managed to look fresh-faced and pretty. A beautiful new mother, so beautiful that even in this town, the photojournalist whose job it was to document births could not resist taking this family portrait and not just a courtesy shot of a squinty, screaming infant.

But it was a family portrait, not merely a mother and child. Sitting on the side of the hospital bed with his arm paternally flung around the both of them, was Erik Metzger.

The point of his paternity was made plain enough, if only by omission. The other two notices sharing this page were the typical gushing birth announcements: _October 16th, 5:30 a.m., Timothy and Lucy GALLIFREY welcomed another beautiful daughter, IRIS ALINDA. “Another little flower for our growing garden,”_ and _Mr. and Mrs. Yancy FRY are proud to present their first child, a son, PHILIP JAY, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit. Born 9:25 p.m. October 29th._ This one read simply, _October 3rd, 8:07 a.m., to Miss Marion Blaylock, a son, DAVID ERIK._

“He’s forty-five in this picture, can you believe that?” Mrs. Rutter asked, forcing Ana’s attention from baby David to his father.

“No,” she said, startled. In the photo, Erik looked no older than Aunt Easter—a bit broader in the chest than most teenagers, maybe, but still able to pass for one, especially with that carefree smile.

“No,” Mrs. Rutter agreed, taking back the photo for closer study. “He aged like Dorian Gray. The only difference between this picture and his senior class photo is the length of his hair. I always thought that must be part of it, that his beauty…it didn’t make him evil, necessarily, but it allowed him to be. It is so much easier to hate the devil that wears hooves and horns than the one that shines like the morning star.”

“You actually have pictures of him from high school?”

“Yes. Oh yes.” And to prove it, Mrs. Rutter went to the bookcase and withdrew a thin, leather-bound volume. She flipped through it as she crossed the room and handed Ana the book, open to Erik Metzger’s smiling teenaged face, and no, there was no difference, none but the length of his hair. 

“You knew him,” said Ana.

“Everyone knew him. But if you’re asking did I go to school with him, well…” She smiled, sharp as a razor. “…no. And I ought to slap you for asking.”

“You’ve slapped me for less.”

Mrs. Rutter acknowledged that with a slight eyebrow movement and no remorse whatsoever. “In any case, the answer is no. I’m younger than I look. This town…ages you. This is my mother’s yearbook.” After a moment or two, she turned a few more pages and showed Ana the photograph of a brunette with thick glasses and an unflattering wide-collared blouse. Mary Rutter, said the caption. “If I’d kept them, I could have showed you class pictures going back to kindergarten. My mother lived just down the street from him on the base. She grew up with him.”

“Were they friends?” Ana asked uncertainly, unable to get a read on the emotion, powerful as it seemed to be, in those last words.

“I doubt it. Erik did not make friends. He charmed people or consumed them. He did not befriend them. But she knew him. I think it’s possible she may have slept with him. She could not seem to help herself speaking of him from time to time, although all her memories seemed to be painful ones.” Mrs. Rutter took the book back and closed it. As she returned it to its place on the shelf, she said, “I asked my mother once what he was like as a child. She told me he was sexual. It was the first time…the only time I ever heard that word out of her mouth. It shocked me. I honestly don’t recall if I questioned her further, but I remember her telling me stories about him, this child who had no innocence.”

“Such as?” Ana asked, wary.

“Once, after play-time, she was putting the dolls away and set two of them together, one on top of the other, just so they would fit in the basket better. Erik, eight years old, asked her if she was practicing with them. She didn’t know what he meant, of course, so she asked. And he took the dolls and showed her, and it was nothing to him, just as if he were making the dolls drink tea or dress up or any other normal thing a child makes a doll do. Some of the other boys saw him. They didn’t know what he was doing with them either, but they teased him for playing with dolls. My mother said Erik stopped what he was doing and just looked at them for the longest time, as if he were watching them on television, she said. As if they weren’t even in the same room as him, but just noise and pictures. But when he understood he was being made fun of, he gave my mother the dolls to hold, then got up, picked up the heaviest book on the reading shelf, and hit the biggest boy in the face. And then he went at them and it was terrifying, she said. He did not fight as boys fight—and boys on the base did fight,” she interjected. “It was a different time and fighting was almost encouraged. Boys will be boys and _should_ be boys, was the consensus of the day. But Erik didn’t push or flail or slap. He watched them, hitting only when a hit could be effective, and so crushed them, as a boy crushes ants, one by one by one, laughing all the while, like it was a game. If they hit him—she was never sure if they did or not—he showed no pain, but just waited for an opening and hit them back, harder. And soon they were trying to get away, but he wouldn’t let them. He kept pulling them back and beating on them, beating them until they fell, until he was down to just him and the biggest boy, and my mother said Erik threw that boy on the ground and sat on him and then leaned over and said something into the boy’s ear that made him start crying and beg to be let up. She said Erik whispered at that crying boy for a long time until the boy couldn’t even cry anymore. And when he was quiet, Erik just got up and came back and sat down with my mother and continued playing with the dolls.”

“She remembered all that?”

“It made an impression on her. It made an impression on me and all I did was hear about it, years after the fact. That was the sort of man he was,” Wendy concluded, seating herself in the leather-backed chair behind the desk. “He was beautiful and brilliant and terrible, but he did make an impression.”

“Did you know him? Personally, I mean?”

“He killed my sister,” said Wendy without change to her expression. “Him or his father or both of them together. I can’t speak for them, but I took it very personally.”

Wendy apparently took Ana’s frown for one of confusion. She opened a drawer, removed a framed photograph, and passed it over. “Her name was Lisa,” she said as Ana studied the sleeping toddler in her black-and-white Christmas finery. Dark hair in ribbons and curls, chipmunk cheeks, pudgy arms wrapped tight around a teddy bear that probably belonged to the studio where this photo was shot. “She was seven when she was taken, but that’s the only picture of her I have. She was pretty, wasn’t she?”

“Sure,” said Ana, who thought that red nose and flushed cheeks meant a Christmas cold and that this cherubic sleep had more to do with a bottle of cough syrup than the Peace on Earth sentiment the photographer had been going for. She’d probably screamed all the way home after they made her leave the teddy at the studio. 

“She would have been truly breath-taking if she’d grown up, but she was pretty enough at seven to catch his eye.” Wendy put her hand out and waited until Ana gave the photo back. Returning it to the drawer, she said, “I don’t remember her. That’s something else we had in common, Marion and I, that we were robbed of memories as much as siblings. It was what drew me to her, to be honest. In Mammon, there are certain people with whom one does not associate. The Blaylocks lived in a trailer and did not mow their grass or grow a garden. Leo Blaylock brought his family to church every single Sunday, but his wife and daughter and grand-daughters were apt to wear long sleeves, even in the summertime.”

“I’m surprised you even noticed,” said Ana, too tired for a tactful silence. “Turning a blind eye is what you do best in this town. Did you really expect that to change just because it was you who needed help this time?”

“Are you telling me I deserved it? Is that what you’re telling me? My seven-year-old sister did not deserve to die just because your family likes to abuse children.”

Ana stood up and punched her fists down on that nice desk in one motion, leaning over it so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice when she said, “But maybe you deserve not to see her killer pay for it because you don’t give a nickel-plated fuck when _other_ people’s children are abused.” 

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Mrs. Rutter as Ana turned around. “There’s a certain comfort in the idea, I must admit. If I got what I…deserved…for my part of the evil that infects this town, then God is just, and a just God would see to it that Erik Metzger and his father and his whore and his slut-born son are all burning together in Hell.”

Ana managed another step toward the door before her temper swung her around. “Whatever may have happened here, David had nothing to do with it! He was a _child!_ ”

“He was his father’s child,” Mrs. Rutter hissed, coming out from behind her desk on legs that did not appear all that steady. “And his mother’s! His sin was set in him from birth. And bad blood will always come out.”

“This shit again,” Ana said, furiously laughing. “So that’s it, is it? That’s really what it boils down to? David is evil because Erik Metzger was the weird kid at school who played with dolls? And Erik _had_ to be the one who killed your sister, why? Because he was too pretty for too long? God, just imagine how many bodies must be buried in Johnny Depp’s backyard. Get help, lady. I mean that. Sincerely.”

Mrs. Rutter watched her go until Ana put her hand on the doorknob, then blurted out in a high, shaking voice, “He told me.”

Ana hesitated, looking back.

“He told me how she died. Screaming, he said. He said she died screaming and he smiled when he told me.”

Slowly, Ana turned around.

“I met Marion…I’ve always known her,” she amended, passing a trembling hand before her eyes as if to press her composure back into her face. It didn’t work. “But I met her in junior high. That was what they called middle school then. I was in the ninth grade, she was in the seventh. It was…would have been Lisa’s birthday. We were all going to the cemetery as soon as I was home from school and I didn’t want to go, so I was in the restroom, trying to cry quietly, and Marion knocked on the stall door. Sometimes you can talk to someone about things you’d never say to your best friends if the one who asks is someone who doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Rutter said, still behind her hand where she couldn’t see Ana’s scowl. “So we talked. I told her about Lisa. She told me about Billy. And we talked…about Erik and his father.”

“What made you think they were responsible?”

“Who else? Say what you want to about my reasons, but who else could it have been? That place they built…those fucking singing animals…” She swore like it hurt her. Shuddering, she drew in another breath to say, “It was all just a pretty web to lure in victims for that family of spiders,” and broke into tears. Tinted eyeshadow and the light brushing of mascara she no doubt denied she wore ran down her face with her tears, but that angry color stayed high and dark in her cheeks, reminding Ana uncomfortably of the Puppet.

Well, shit.

Ana looked around and spied a box of tissues disguised in a decorative cover and half-hidden behind a fake fern. She offered it and found something else in the room to look at while the older woman cried. 

“We devised a plan, her and I,” Mrs. Rutter said at length, and went to her tall leather chair behind the desk. She fell into it more than she sat, and gripped the arms as if she were afraid of falling right on through it without their support. “To trap him.”

“How?”

“We were children. We didn’t think that far. We were Nancy Drew and Lois Lane, hurtling ourselves into the villain’s den, confident that a confession and a phone call to the police were all we’d need to see justice done. We were stupid. I was stupid.” Wiping at her eyes one last time, Mrs. Rutter placed the crumpled tissues in an otherwise empty wicker bin to one side of the desk, one by one. “We took jobs, each of us with each of them. I presented myself as a maid to the other one—”

“Viktor?”

“No. He was dead by then. Or at least, he was gone. No one dies in Mammon. We all just go away. I mean the other one, the other devil.” She looked at her, truly haggard without her concealing mask of makeup. “Your patron and mine, Mr. Faust.”

A surge of vertigo passed through her and for a moment, Ana thought again of running. The door was right there, close enough to touch. She hadn’t heard anything yet, not really. She could still leave and nothing would ever change. Aunt Easter could always be that beautiful, smiling mother she never had; David could be the best friend just waiting for them to be old enough to get married; Bonnie could still be just an animatronic bunny in a pizza parlor. But now her legs were too watery to let her run, so she went back to her chair and sat down to listen.

“He didn’t want to hire me,” Mrs. Rutter was saying. “He already had a cleaning service, he said. In a stroke of desperate inspiration, I—” She indicated her face. “—pretended to cry. I told him some nonsense about my father drinking and how we were behind on all our bills. He offered to pay them. Just like that. I told him we couldn’t take charity, that my father would beat me if he knew I’d been airing the family laundry. He offered to get me a job at the government building, answering phones or some other sort of easy desk work. I said I needed to work somewhere that he, my father I mean, wouldn’t hear about it and know to take the money from me. My poor father. He was the gentlest man that ever lived, but I made him an ogre. And it worked. He hired me. Every day after school, barring club meetings and other activities, for the next three months, I went to his house and tried my best to find bodies when I could hardly find dust. But Marion, oh.” She laughed shortly, bitterly. “Marion walked into Freddy’s and fell into his arms.”

“Was that part of the plan?”

“No. He was so much older, as I say. She was just fifteen, perhaps not even quite fifteen. I know she lied about her age to get the job. I’m sure he saw right through her. He knew lies too well to ever be taken by one. I can only surmise it amused him to play with her. I was stupid, as I say, stupid enough to think she was as innocent as I was in those days. I know differently now, but whatever innocence she might have had, he took it as easily as if she’d passed him the salt at the supper table.”

“Did she tell you this?”

“No.” Mrs. Rutter smiled without much strength. “But people talk in a small town. His father, you know, had quite a healthy appetite for some very young ladies. Like father, like son. And she was always very pretty, was Marion. Two hundred years ago, they would have hung her for a witch, that’s how pretty. And they should have. Like him, she glowed with an evil light.” 

Mrs. Rutter lapsed into silence, staring out the window at the garden in her backyard. Corn, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, young squash. There were probably bottles in the dish drainer this minute, ready for canning, and a fridge full of the season’s strawberries. A summer Saturday in Utah was made for families to garden together; when you didn’t have one, you gardened alone.

“I ignored the rumors at first,” Mrs. Rutter said, still watching corn plants wave in the breeze. “I didn’t believe it. Not of Marion. She hated him, as I hated him. He’d robbed her of her brother, which had perhaps robbed her of her mother, which had forced her into her grandfather’s home, where, as she once remarked, the bedroom door had no locks.”

Ana frowned.

“But she would work later and later. She began to wear lipstick. At fifteen, mind you. She did her hair differently, hemmed her skirts shorter, wore purple. She began to wear earrings and necklaces I knew she never could have bought, things hardly anyone in this town could have bought, much less someone like her. And cameras, of course. Cameras that, in that day, cost hundreds of dollars. All this, I could ignore, convincing myself she was just trying to gain his confidence, gain access to…to whatever my stupid mind needed to believe to justify what my eyes plainly saw. But even I couldn’t ignore it forever. I confronted her. She denied it. She looked me in my eyes and denied it all, with diamond chips in her ears and a brand-new camera on a strap around her neck.”

“Let me guess,” said Ana. “You slapped her.”

Mrs. Rutter looked at her. “When a dog barks, you kick it,” she said evenly. “When a whore lies, you beat it.”

“That’s beautiful,” Ana said, also without raising her voice. “Is that one from the Bible or the Book of Mormon?”

“I told her something stupid. That if she wasn’t with me, she was against me, or nonsense of that sort. That I’d take them both down together. That I’d see her rot in prison before she burned in hell. She left in tears and we did not speak for weeks. Not directly, although I did my part to make sure she knew I was still thinking of her.”

“You hounded her.”

“I was childish,” said Mrs. Rutter without apology. “And she was spreading her legs for the man who killed my sister, who may have killed her brother. How does a few nasty notes in her locker compare to that? She paid me back, didn’t she? In spades.”

“How?”

“One night, towards the end of the year, she called me. I hung up on her a few times, but she was persistent and finally, my father, sick of the phone ringing, ordered me to talk to her. She admitted to the affair. She told me she’d been a fool. She told me she was sorry. She told me all the right things to say and she did it so well, so convincingly, I can only imagine he was right there, whispering in her ear. And then she told me she had found something at his house, something that would actually convict him. A diary, she said. With pictures. He didn’t know she’d seen it, she said, and she was afraid of what he’d do to her if he knew she had. She hadn’t been able to steal it when she’d been there, but she saw where he kept it. I didn’t believe her. I told her to tell me where, but she did. So vividly, I knew it had to exist.”

“Do you remember what she said?” asked Ana.

“She said the book had a red leather cover with brass points and gold letters. He kept it hidden in a desk, in a room at the end of the hall on the second floor. Green walls. Hunter’s green, she called it. Wooden floors and wooden shelves built right into the wall, all stained dark. There were heads on the wall, mounted the way some people mount the heads of deer or bobcats, only these weren’t animals. They were dolls, she told me. Old wooden dolls with painted faces. I suppose she meant like ventriloquist dummies. I never saw them myself. I never saw any of it.”

Ana’s mind washed free of all words, all thought. She opened her mouth, but had nothing to say and no breath with which to say it.

“Is there such a room?” Mrs. Rutter asked.

Mutely, Ana nodded. She’d only been in it long enough to clear it of the hoard, and Metzger’s doll heads were no longer in evidence, but she had noticed shield-shaped silhouettes all around those hunter green walls where the plaques had once been. The built-in bookshelves were still intact, made strong and made to last. And the desk was still in the room, too heavy to move to the basement and too pretty to consider throwing out, monstrous and forbidding as it was.

“And the diary?”

Ana shook her head, but she was already thinking that although she’d emptied the desk of its forgotten innards, she had not thought to check for secret compartments.

“Well. That might have been a lie. The rest of her confession certainly was. In any event, she told me he would be attending the Christmas tree-lighting ceremony with his good friend, Mr. Faust, and while he was gone, the two of us could break into his house. We would steal the diary, take it to the police, accept our medals and go home heroes. I had plans for the Christmas festival already, so I did what all teenagers do. I told my parents I was staying the night with my best friend, I told my friends to cover for me so I could meet my boyfriend, and I told my boyfriend that some relative in Salt Lake City needed a ride to the airport and my parents were insisting I go. And when no one, no one apart from Marion, knew where I was, I slipped away to meet her. Am I telling you this?” she asked, without a change to her tone, as if it were part of her story. She took a tissue, touched her eyes, and looked at the shadow she took away. “You, of all people? I destroyed my life keeping this secret just to tell you?”

“I can keep a secret.”

“Everyone can, in Mammon.” Wiping her eyes again, she took up the threads of her tale. “I picked her up down the street from her house and drove out toward the old quarry. I parked in the dark behind that bluff where the new Freddy’s was built and we waited. The Christmas tree is lit the Sunday after Thanksgiving, at midnight, but there are always parties and Mr. Faust has to make appearances at many. I knew there would be formal dinners somewhere, so I expected him to leave at six or seven o’clock, but he waited until nearly eight. It was cold and we didn’t dare run the engine, even with the lights off, for fear he’d see the steam of the exhaust, so we just huddled in our coats. But Marion had brought two Thermoses with cocoa. She gave me one.” Mrs. Rutter smiled her venomous smile. “I thanked her.”

_He made me say thank you,_ Nate Donahue whispered from the dark place in Ana’s heart. _And I did._

“Finally, he left. His was the only house on that road, so even though all I saw were headlights, I knew they were his. When he was gone, I started the car, but I had trouble driving in a straight line. I thought it was the excitement, the danger…the heroism. I managed to find the road, but when Marion offered to drive, I let her. I don’t recall agreeing with her, exactly, merely that she asked and I obeyed. And so she drove.”

‘No,’ thought Ana, but she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t even shake her head. She knew what Mrs. Rutter was telling her and she knew what was going to come next, but that was Aunt Easter handing her that hot drink, Aunt Easter, who had tucked Ana into bed and sung her back to sleep when she woke up with bad mother-dreams. Aunt Easter, who loved her. 

“That drive is a dream to me now. There was no snow, but I remember thinking there might be, and the thought made it as real as if it were flying at the windshield in flurries, even as I could see the night was clear. Two realities, overlapping. It did not disturb me at the time. I had a speech prepared for when I called the police and another, for when I addressed the reporters. I was thinking of those speeches all the way up the mountain. I may have been saying them out loud. It’s unclear now. When we reached the house, that…awful brooding scowl of a house, Marion came to open my door. I followed her, as…as a duckling follows its mother, stumbling and wandering. There were miles, it seemed, between the car and the house, miles even from the ground up to where I stood on it. By the time we came to the porch steps, she had to hold me up. She brought me in. She had her own key. She set me on the sofa in the parlor and sat down beside me. She gave me my cocoa and told to me to drink it. She had to tell me several times. In the end, she had to hold the cap for me and tell me to swallow. 

“I felt no fear,” Mrs. Rutter said. “I distinctly remember the sound of my laughter, although I don’t recall feeling joy either. I felt nothing. I seemed to be in my body only part of the time. The rest of the time, I felt that I was somewhere behind and to one side of it, a mere witness and not a very engaged one at that. I don’t know how I can describe that feeling, knowing what I was there for, knowing it was for Lisa and for justice, and still finding the wallpaper more interesting than the diary I knew I was there to find. The last thing I remember clearly is the color purple moving in front of that wallpaper and the sound of his voice telling Marion to get the camera. Even his voice was purple.”

‘Well, this is what you wanted, isn’t it?’ Ana thought suddenly, her first clear thought in a very long time. Like Erik Metzger’s voice, it sounded purple in her head. ‘You wanted to know what the hell her problem with the house was. Here it is. You wanted a first-hand witness, your own Nate Donahue. You got that, too. Should have asked for winning lottery numbers while you were at it, huh?’

“When I woke up the next morning, I was naked in his bed,” said Mrs. Rutter without emotion. “He was beside me, on top of the blankets, fully clothed, although his shirt…his purple shirt…was unbuttoned. He was watching television.” She paused there, a thoughtful expression like a shadow passing over her impassive face. “He was the first person I ever knew who had a television in his bedroom. And a VCR. Betamax. Well, they all were back then. He was watching and so I looked, too. It was pornography. I was confused and disgusted at first. I didn’t realize right away that it was me.”

“With him?” If she’d tried to say it, she never would have been able to. Her throat felt as tight as a fist. But she didn’t plan it, she only heard it, her own whisper harsh on her ears.

“No. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to put himself on that tape. I was sixteen. He was in his forties. No, I don’t know the man. The men, I should say. I don’t even recognize the hotel. I remember nothing. I have no idea where he took me or what he told me, but in the condition I was in, I was so…obedient. And happy.” Her voice cracked. “Excuse me,” Mrs. Rutter said. She took another tissue from the box and wiped her eyes in two swift, clinical motions, as if she were merely suffering a mild attack of allergies.

“Happy,” she said again, steady now. “I laughed. I slurred some of my speech, but I didn’t do much talking, really, so it wasn’t very noticeable. An objective viewer might think I was drunk, but by no means incapacitated. And in those days, you understand, a girl who drank in the company of men deserved whatever followed. Even if I had been unconscious on the floor while they all took turns, the fault would have been only mine, and I wasn’t. I seemed perfectly within my faculties as I took the money and…did…what I did for them. Some of them had requests. I was always…obedient.

“As I watched the tape, Erik said my name. I had forgotten he was there. I tried to get up. He told me to sit still and listen. I did. I can’t explain that either. You’d think I would have run. You,” she said with a short laugh. “You probably would have punched him. But I sat still. And I listened.”

She cried some more.

Ana sat still and listened.

“He told me whatever my plans were, they were over. If I ever said anything to anyone about him or Marion or his father, copies of that tape would be made, in his words, extremely public. I would be ruined. In every way. Ruined. And you still would have punched him, I’m sure, but I waited until he told me to put my clothes on and get out, and I did what he said. When I was leaving, he said my sister’s name. I looked at him. I will always remember him that way,” she said, placing her last tissue into the bin beside the desk and gazing out the window. “So relaxed. Smiling. Stretched out like a…a cat across that deep purple coverlet. Royal purple. A prince. That was how he looked at me when he told me my little sister died screaming and I could tell the world if I wanted to, if I was willing to trade my life for a chance—just a chance, mind you—to see him pay for hers.”

“And you didn’t.”

“Of course not. It would have been his word against mine, his word against that of a prostitute! I couldn’t have won, I could only have destroyed myself. No, I left. No threats. No promise of retaliation. Certainly, no police. I just left. Marion was there in the kitchen, cooking breakfast. She gave me my keys and told me to drive safely. I wanted to kill her, but Erik was watching from the stairs. I was afraid to even speak to her. I never spoke to her again until after he was gone. I was working for the city by then—Mr. Faust got me that job. He’s always kept the wheels greased for me, so to speak, even though my ‘abusive drunkard’ of a father has been dead ten years now—and she came to me to have the billing for the utilities moved over into her name. He’d given her the house already, when her son was born. I tried to talk to her then, but she just laughed at me. She said he wasn’t dead. She said her brother wasn’t dead. I told her she was crazy. She was, you know,” Mrs. Rutter added, almost conversationally. “Perhaps she always was or perhaps he infected her with his madness, but she was crazy. I told her if she wouldn’t go to the police with me, I would go without her. When I got home from work that night, my husband met me at the door with an unmarked tape in his hand. He said he’d found it in the mailbox, no postal mark, addressed to me, with a note saying, ‘Here it is, as requested! Enjoy with someone you love!’ So he’d watched it.”

Ana said nothing.

“It was a copy of _Les Corps a ses Raisons_. Do you know it?”

Ana shook her head.

“I believe its American title was _Erotic Blackmail_. I’m sure you can look it up if you’re interested. It was not my tape…but it could have been. So. So I never spoke to her again,” Mrs. Rutter concluded, leaning back in her chair with her fingertips lightly touching, staring off out the window again. “But they’ve never…never really left me. They were with me every day those first few weeks, waiting for my period to come on. They were with me on my wedding night, and every night my husband tried to love me. They held my hand when I had to sign the divorce papers. They stand smiling over my sister’s empty grave. They are here in this room right now, each with a hand on your shoulder, and I’m sure,” she said softly, venomously, “they are so, _so_ very proud of you.”

“And you really think he killed your sister.”

“Him or his father. They are the same. As David, that little demon, would have become, if he had been allowed to mature.”

Ana put that aside, not easily, but she did it. “How? How was he never caught? And don’t give me the money excuse. A bunch of kids go missing and the same guy has no alibi each and every time, Scrooge McDuck himself would be investigated, so how did he get away with it?”

Mrs. Rutter shrugged with her hands. “My sister was taken in broad daylight, off the curb in front of Fredbear’s Diner, but most of them disappeared at night, when Erik, like most predators, was most active. He was often seen out on the town with his good friend or dancing with his whore on the nights people vanished. Yet somehow, he managed.”

“Do you think he had other accomplices? Or…” Faced with the other woman’s complete indifference, Ana braced herself and said, “If you really think he was the Devil, do you think he had…some sort of power—”

“He was the Devil. His soul, that is. His substance. But his body was just a man’s. I know what you’re thinking,” Mrs. Rutter said, her lip curved into half a smile, half a sneer. “But the only monsters in Mammon were human. There are no hungry ghosts in the old quarry and there are no haunted animal suits in those crumbling pizza parlors—”

Ana did not flinch.

“—Mr. Faust refuses to tear down. _Freddy_ does not live…but you do. And as long as you do, so does Erik Metzger.” Mrs. Rutter stood and went to open the office door. Her back was rigid. Her hands were not steady. “I would like you to get out of my house now. I may see you again. It’s a small town. I may even be forced to deal with you on official business from time to time, and I will try to do so fairly, since I don’t appear to have a choice, but if you ever come to my house again, I may become frightened and confused and shoot you for a burglar.”

She’d probably get away with it too, thought Ana as she showed herself out. Here in Mammon, they’d gotten awfully good at letting murderers off. She wanted so badly to say so out loud, but when she reached the front door and looked back, what she said instead was, “If I find those tapes, do you want them?”

“They’ve managed to ruin my life quite effectively without ever getting out at all, wouldn’t you say?” Mrs. Rutter replied. “But go on. Bring them to me and we’ll negotiate the price of your silence.”

“That’s not what I…” Ana abandoned her half-hearted effort at peacemaking and let her frustration show. “Lady, I’m trying to do the decent thing here.”

“That word doesn’t even belong in your mouth,” Mrs. Rutter said, gripping the door until her knuckles blanched from the strain. “If you want to make me happy, go home to the house where my sister died, set it on fire, and burn in it.”

Slam.


	3. Chapter 3

# CHAPTER THREE

The first thing Ana did when she got home was take her keys from the truck’s ignition and clip them to the belt loop at the small of her back. Once she was as high as she intended to get, that would be as good as strapping them into a rocket and launching them into space, while ensuring they’d be easily found after she sobered up. That done, before she even got out of the truck, she opened her day pack, took one Vicodan, one Xanax and the last of her Lexotan and washed them down with two swallows of Fireball. It had been a long time since she’d last drank anything stronger than beer. The flavors of cinnamon and whiskey were stronger than she remembered, burning all the way down to her empty belly. It was going to hit her head even harder, she knew, and pretty damn quick at that. 

She left the pills in the truck with her day pack, but took the bottle with her for courage as she approached the massive wooden doors. Unlocked, as they always were. They had been castle doors in her childhood, welcoming when they were open, protective when they were closed. Now she saw dungeon doors and she was afraid she always would.

She went inside.

It was Aunt Easter’s house, stripped of all its photos and furnishings, broken by neglect and hoarding. It was Erik Metzger’s house, emptied of terror and death, filled in again with a little girl’s only good memories. It was Ana’s house, unfamiliar and unloved. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been here, but she knew it had been to grab a quick shower before work, so it was that long ago at least. And there was a smell wafting down the hall that told her she should have taken the garbage out before she left.

Before the pills and booze took effect, Ana took care of that, as well as the dishes she’d apparently left in the sink. Her head was starting to swim a bit by the time she finished cleaning out the fridge, but she helped it along with another swallow of Fireball before she headed upstairs.

Plushtrap’s chair at the end of the hall to her left was still empty, although the door to the attic stairwell was open; he was probably up there, lying in wait for her. She’d deal with him later. For now, she had bigger problems than a stupid stuffed rabbit. She took a drink and started walking in the other direction, past David’s room and Aunt Easter’s room, to the door at the end of the hall. To the room with hunter green walls.

It was a man’s room, or had been once. The wainscoting was dark and the fixtures had a masculine flair to their flourishes. Not a bedroom—no closet—but a home office or a smoking room or whatever they called man caves before the phrase ‘man cave’ had been invented. A trophy room, Ana had thought. The paper, deceptively plain from a distance, had a pattern of battling stags with their antlers interlocked when you got right up close. When she’d first discovered it, she had assumed those blocky pale patterns all along the walls marked the places where big game heads had once been mounted and she’d kept half an eye open for them as she’d cleared the hoard, but never found them. 

She’d never found doll heads either, she reminded herself, and she was dead sure she would have noticed them, if the Puppet’s design was any indication of how the rest of them looked.

How long Ana stood in the doorway staring at the empty walls, she didn’t know, although she felt Time’s passage keenly. Without the distinction of seconds or minutes, perhaps, but keenly. A weight, a knife. Some external force pressing on her, wanting her to feel it before it struck the killing blow.

She had the feeling the drugs might be kicking in already.

Ana turned the light on and moved into the room. The sound of her boots on the hardwood floors bounced echoes off the walls and all around her, heavier than she was. She had no childhood memories of this place, no nostalgia to distract her from her purpose here. The first time she’d walked into this room, it had been filled floor to ceiling with boxes of holiday clothes, catalogues and the cheapest of all cheap Christmas junk, but even that memory could hardly stand out when so much of the house had been buried the same way. The only picture of this place that came in clearly had been looking back at it before shutting the door the last time she’d seen it and wondering vaguely whose room it had been—whose style had matched that wallpaper, who had bought the books that filled those shelves, who had sat at that desk.

It was a heavy desk, too heavy to move without a hell of a better reason than she’d had. It had been part of a set that had not survived being buried in Yuletide cheer, but even among its fellow pieces, it had stood out. Dark wood with beautiful burl inlay on the facing side, Victorian silhouette, likely hand-carved, with a leather writing surface that needed replacing and brass trimmings that had achieved a natural patina over time. It would have dominated any room with its authoritative, slightly sinister presence. In this room, emptied of all other distractions to the eye, it ceased to be a desk at all and became instead an altar.

Yeah, the drugs were definitely kicking in.

Ana took a last swig from the bottle and put it down—on the window-ledge, not the desk. She opened the drawers, one after the other, knowing she’d emptied them once already. She could remember a disappointing lack of personal papers in her first cursory examination, but somewhere in the basement was a box of crap she thought might be worth something on eBay: some of the earliest staplers and tape dispensers known to man, gold and silver fountain pens and cut crystal inkwells, a small tin with an assortment of old coins, half a box of extremely stale tobacco and a lighter that looked more like a genie’s lamp than the Zippo in Ana’s own pocket, and a pretty damn lethal-looking letter opener with a magnifying glass set in the hilt. In other words, she’d found nothing, but she hadn’t been looking for secret compartments then. Now she was and with those eyes on, she needed only a glance to see that one of those deep drawers was four inches shallower than it should be.

Finding the catch proved a little more difficult, but just when she’d decided to bash the whole damn thing apart, her fingers slipped into the magic spot and the bottom of the drawer popped up on one end.

‘This is it,’ she thought, not quite clearly. Mike’s videos might have been tampered with and didn’t show anything graphic anyway; his posters might have been gleaned from the public record and put together in Photoshop; Wendy Rutter’s story might have been just that, a story told solely to taint Ana’s memory of her aunt because Ana had humiliated her over a real estate dispute. It could all still be a lie and a hoax and a misunderstanding until she opened this compartment. Whatever she found, that was real, and no one in the history of humanity had ever hidden away the proof that they were innocent.

Ana looked at the whiskey over in the window and saw the devil on the label. She sat on the carpet and lifted the false bottom out of the drawer.

Beneath a neatly-folded tea towel and an alabaster jar of cold cream, she found the book. Red leather with brass points, just as described, with the word _Memories_ embossed in gold on the front cover.

Once again, Ana looked at the window. This time, she gave in and crawled over to get the bottle, sitting with her back to the wall and the light slanting in through the dirty glass directly on the book in her lap. The gold letters flared, seeming to float above the leather, like sparkles on bloody water. Pretty. The sun didn’t care where it shone.

She opened it.

It wasn’t a diary. In fact, apart from the cover and the printing company’s information, there was nothing at all written in the book, not on the pages and not on the photographs tucked inside. If they even were technically photographs and not some other word that specifically meant this variation: black and white with an odd smoky patina over the film and colors expertly painted onto the print. They were not glued down, but set merely by tucking their corners through slits in the heavy two-ply pages, so they could be easily removed for close study. 

Ana checked several, but there was nothing written on their backs—no names, no dates and no studio watermark, although these weren’t the sort of photograph you sent in to be developed. Aunt Easter had used one of her two walk-in closets as a dark room; perhaps these pictures had been developed there, in the same room with just a single door between them and the big bed where Ana and David used to curl up in the evenings and listen to Aunt Easter read to them. And hell, even if little Ana had ventured into that forbidden territory and found these very pictures hanging from the line to dry, would she have been frightened? No. No one appeared to be hurt in any of these pictures, no one was crying, no one scared. The only disturbing thing about them was the story they did not tell, Mike Schmidt’s story, Wendy Rutter’s. Taken simply for what they were, they were just…a collection of charmingly vintage porn. 

They were all nudes, at first artistically draped in filmy scarves or coyly hidden behind oriental fans, but growing progressively bolder—and younger—as the pages turned. None of the furnishings were familiar and neither was the wallpaper behind them, but more to the point, neither were their faces. Without Mike Schmidt’s binder full of posters to compare them to, she couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t recognize any of these people. They were women…teens…girls…boys…but strangers.

Until she saw David.

Her throat closed, trapping the air in her lungs and the horror in her heart until she had time enough to see it couldn’t be him. The hair was wrong. David had never had a bowl-cut in his life. But the resemblance was too strong to have just come out of the bottle. If this wasn’t her cousin, it had to be her uncle. Not David; Billy.

She took the photo out and turned it around. Still no name, no dates, but it was Billy Blaylock. There wasn’t anyone else it could be. But regardless of what else was going on in this picture…or out of frame…he was alive when it was taken. And although he wasn’t smiling like so many others in this book, he wasn’t chained up in a basement somewhere either. He was just a naked boy, sitting on a blanket in the grass on a sunny day, wholly absorbed in sorting out the flowers that had been sprinkled over him. He probably didn’t even know his picture was being taken and he certainly didn’t know to what use it would later be put. In another person’s photo album, it would even be innocent. For something that was supposed to prove everything, Ana hadn’t seen a single thing that proved any part of either story.

And then Ana turned a page and found herself face to gape-mouthed face with the Puppet.

It was a close-up, its head filling the dimensions of the photograph, itself trimmed down to fit the dimensions of the book. Still a black and white print and still painted, but badly. The delicate touch that had put a blush in the cheeks of the preceding pictures or put the lie of life into those eyes was not in evidence here. Whoever had rouged up this picture had been about as subtle as a five-dollar whore after closing. Nevertheless, the eyes were alive. Alive and screaming, for all that the mask perpetually grinned. 

Ana drank, staring into the eyes of the Puppet until she could feel it staring back into hers. Then she turned the page, out of Viktor Metzger’s fap material and into Erik’s. She knew, not just because of the sudden change in the quality of the photographs, but because the very first subject after the Puppet was Aunt Easter.

Young. She had always seemed young to little Ana, so young and pretty when she smiled, but this? No. This was the Aunt Easter before David, before a driver’s license. Her naked breasts had never suckled; her slender hips had never birthed. Her ribs showed. Her bare arms showed bruises beneath the pale fall of her hair. She smiled that nervous, shy, excited smile of a girl who knows she does not deserve to be loved, but has been told anyway and cannot stop herself from believing it.

Ana did not know the women that appeared in the book after that, but she recognized the wallpaper. That was the window in the formal parlor. That was the fireplace in the dining room. The oversized tub in the master bathroom. These women may or may not be in Mike Schmidt’s binder, but their pictures had been taken in this house, and it wasn’t long before the composition of the pictures ineffably changed and Ana knew who was holding the camera. Aunt Easter was no Kubrick, no Spielberg, but she had a way of looking at the world through a lens and it was as unique as a fingerprint.

She was too drunk to close the book, not drunk enough yet to cry, so Ana took another swallow of Fireball and turned the pages.

Women. So many women. The youngest might have been a well-developed twelve or thirteen; the oldest, a well-preserved fifty. He liked them all shapes, all sizes. Whether they were flat-chested as boys or voluptuous as a Ruebens painting, all edges or all curves, Aunt Easter found the right light and the right pose to make them beautifully wanton for his pleasure.

So. Proof of kinky sexual escapades? Sure. Proof of an undiscriminating attitude toward the age of consent? Absolutely. Proof of abduction and murder, even of blackmail? No. It might have convinced a young, even more uptight Wendy Rutter that the Metzgers were a family of devils, but it was just a bunch of racy pictures. No big deal…

No…

…oh God, no.

This time it really was David. 

He was seven or eight in this picture, surely no older, posed next to the grandfather clock in the hallway with the late afternoon light shining on one side of his naked body and the rest in shadow. He had one hand on the corner of the rolltop desk and the other tucked behind his back, emphasizing his body captured here in transition from baby fat to long preteen limbs. He had one leg kicked slightly in front of the other, not quite enough to shield his privates from the unblinking eye of the lens. He faced forward, but his eyes were not quite at center-focus; he was not looking at the camera, but at her, his mother, and his eyes were wounded above the mouth that tried to smile. He knew this was wrong. He didn’t know why or what made it different from the hundred or thousand pictures she had taken of him before, but he knew this one was wrong.

“We’re not supposed to be in here.”

Ana dragged her head up and saw, without fear or surprise, Erik Metzger standing over her. The gold shield on his sleeve seemed to glow in the dying light that slanted through the window. All the rest of him was shadowed, but still purple, from his angled uniform hat to his socks.

“This is Daddy’s room,” said Erik.

Ana looked at the book, still open in her hands. David’s picture, the only one she had of him now. He was moving, just a little. Breathing. Blinking. Even knowing she was high—and she knew—she could see him looking up at her, his mouth moving in silent words. In welcome? In warning? She could almost read his lips. _If someone hurt me…_

Someone had. Was it her fault? Had he done what he did because she’d said what she’d said?

“I’m sorry,” she said, twenty years too late.

Erik hunkered down in front of her, pushing a gust of odor at her—not blood or death, but just a pungent, unwashed stink—and put his hands, soft as a child’s, over hers, helping her to close the book. He took it away, set it aside, and took her hands. He smiled. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. His eyes were muddy. His teeth were white, but crooked and he was missing a few. “We’re not supposed to be in here,” he said again and stood, pulling her up with him.

He got smaller as she stood, becoming more of a child as she became more an adult, until he was neither David nor Erik, but both of them at once. He was tall enough still to support her, but when she stumbled, he wasn’t strong enough (or real enough) to hold her. She hit the floor knees first, rolled into the wall and huddled there, her head still falling, watching the Purple Man hunker down and grow huge again.

“Ouch,” he said softly, touching her knee. The floor was rough, the boards dry; her knees were red, stippled with dots of blood too small to bead and fall. The Purple Man leaned forward and pursed his lips as if to whistle, just as Aunt Easter used to do, soothing the pain away with his cool breath. Then he kissed them, first one knee and then the other, and smiled at her again. “All better,” he told her and it was.

It was.

He picked her up again. He wasn’t really there and she knew it, but somehow just the idea of his hands was enough to let her borrow their little strength and stand. When she was up, he put his arm around her waist, letting her lean into his thin frame as he led her down the hall, past her room and David’s room, down the stairs…through the clock…

She wasn’t sure when she started crying. She might have been doing it all the while. But the Purple Man sat her on the edge of the pirate ship bed, then went into the bathroom and came back with a cold, wet cloth to wipe her face. He blew on her cheeks as he’d done on her knees, and that was Aunt Easter, too, soothing her tears as if they were any other pain and telling her don’t cry, Honeybunny, everything was all right. Because she’d loved her. That was real, that had to be real. Even monsters could love.

“Bedtime,” the Purple Man told her, reaching for her shirt. 

She lifted her arms, mutely miserable, and let him pull it away. He did it without lust, a patient parent with a tired child. He untied her shoes and slipped them off, squeezing once at her toes to coax a wan smile out of her. At his direction, she stood and let him unbutton and unzip her shorts, bracing herself on his bony shoulder to step out of them. He put her clothes in the hamper and brought her a t-shirt from the closet. It stank like him, not musty and unused, but used and hung up again, unclean. She put it on; too tight.

The Purple Man lifted the blankets for her and tucked them in around her, then went back to the bathroom. She lay on her side and stared at the bathroom door, listening to the phantom sounds as he urinated, flushed, briefly showered and brushed his teeth. He came out again naked and damp, carrying his uniform in his arms. He put it in the hamper, stood a moment, then took it out and hung it up in the closet. He put on his pajamas—red and blue, with the Superman shield on the chest—and climbed into bed beside her. Not Erik anymore then, but David. When he put his arms around her, she rolled over and hugged him back.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, stroking his thin fingers through her hair until they snagged on her braid. “I didn’t mean to be bad. I just wanted you to come home. I’ll be good now. Please don’t go away again. It’s dark and cold sometimes and I was all alone. I missed you so much. You said we’d always be together. You said we could be a family.”

Ana closed her eyes and moaned.

“Don’t be mad at me,” said the Purple Man. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said and cried because it was true. Whether this ghost born of opiates and her own heartache was David or Erik, she loved him. Whatever else he was, whatever else he’d done, he’d loved her and so she had to love him back. She cried and he blew on her tears and sang all the same songs Aunt Easter used to sing back when she was Honeybunny and he was Honeybear and love didn’t have to hurt.

# * * *

Ana awoke in the ship-shaped bed in the basement, alone but not alone. Beneath her arm where David/Erik had been the night before was a gold-satin bunny with glass eyes and metal teeth. Plushtrap.

She stared at him. He stared at her.

She closed her eyes, hugged him closer and slept again.

The second time she woke up, she made herself get out of the bed. Leaving Plushtrap on the pillow, she staggered over to the hamper and reclaimed her clothes. Once dressed, she hung the t-shirt back in the closet, still reeking of neglect and now her own night-sweats. She made the bed, careful not to disturb Plushtrap. The house was his and she wouldn’t fight him for it, but before she left, there was one thing she wanted to take with her.

Not the photo album. She never wanted to see that thing again, not even as long as it would take to burn it. No, she took the cupcake, Chica’s pink cupcake, turning it slowly over and listening to its broken parts rattle as she looked into its creepy human eyes. She’d never seen it in any of Aunt Easter’s tapes from Circle Drive, only from Mike Schmidt’s videos of Mulholland, where it had been the Toy version of Chica’s accessory. So if Chica—her Chica—recognized it…well. That was that. And whatever ‘that’ was, she’d deal with it, but she had to know how much of the nightmare was real. Erik Metzger had been real—and her aunt, maybe—but they were both gone now and that part of the dream was over. Freddy’s was still here, and if any part of that story was true…

Ana went upstairs, through the clock and out into the hall. She looked around, maybe for the last time, at this house that had once been her golden castle and heart’s desire, then left.

She went to Freddy’s, all the while thinking she wouldn’t, not yet, that she’d just roll on out of town, get some coffee, maybe catch a movie, put her head in some other world until she was ready to deal with this one again. But when she came to the access road to Edge of Nowhere, her hands turned the wheel and the tires turned the truck. 

She watched from a distance as she pulled herself up to the loading dock and parked. The door moved freely when she lifted it; the table leg that Freddy used to keep the track jammed was laying on the shelf in a conspicuous place. Wanting her to see it, maybe, and know that she was welcome. Or maybe just because she’d yelled at him the last time he’d locked her out.

She didn’t know what time it was, but the sun was high and she could hear Freddy on the main stage, leading the room in a series of gentle songs that were almost, but not quite, hymns. Weird routine for a pizza parlor, until she remembered what day it was.

She could still remember how surprised she’d been last Sunday, when they’d powered up and started their acts. Most businesses in Mammon were closed on Sundays and certainly all three of the other eateries were. But there they were, although they’d added songs like _Every Star is Different and Little Seeds_ to their routines and worked in more monologues about friendship and kindness instead of jokes. Not that the jokes were that great, but without them, the overarching mood of the place definitely slanted away from Muppets and more toward VeggieTales. 

Ana listened in the dark to the soothing rise and fall of Freddy’s voice, thinking of Fred Faust and how well he’d understood this town. Open the pizza parlor on Sunday; they’ll still come if you put hymns in the act. They’ll go straight from the pews where they sat and sang and ignored the family whose little girls wear long sleeves in the summertime. They’ll come right in and sit right down and sniff at the fact that there’s beer on the menu while Foxy teaches their kids to sing Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. And even though everyone in this entire town fervently believes in no sex before marriage, the Toybox had needed four party rooms to keep up with the demand for private performances with kid-friendly sex-bots…

Small towns. The brighter the halo, the darker the shadow it casts.

In the kitchen, Ana crunched over broken glass and felt along the countertop until she found a lantern. By its light, she returned her pills and liquor to the cupboard, then picked up the mess she’d made with her tantrum Friday night and swept the floor. Along with the pieces of her coffee maker, she found the tooth she’d dug out of Freddy’s hand. The tooth that may or may not be human, but which had not come gently out of the mouth where it had grown either way.

Ana tossed it all in the trash and took her light to the dining room. She put her day pack on the table and boosted herself up to sit beside it. She watched the show. Now and then, Freddy would glance at her and his plastic brows draw together slightly, but other than that, he continued his medley without interruption. Chica and Bonnie were nowhere to be seen, which meant she was in the reading room and he was in the craft room. For them, the restaurant was open and happy kids were filling every chair, laughing and singing and coloring paper masks. If she worked at it, she could see it the same way. But of course, it was daytime. At night, things were different.

“ _ANGRY THOUGHTS ARE LIGHTLY SPOKEN,_ ” sang Freddy. “ _BITTEREST THOUGHTS ARE RASHLY STIRRED. BRIGHTEST LINKS OF LIFE ARE BROKEN BY A SINGLE ANGRY WORD._ ”

This was an oddly familiar tune, considering the only time Ana had ever set foot in a church had been as Rider’s date for his brother’s wedding. Where had she heard it before? And then she got it, right before Freddy brought it home with a repeat of the first verse:

“ _ANGRY WORDS, O LET THEM NEVER FROM THE TONGUE UNBRIDLED SLIP…_ ”

The last time she’d heard those words, the Purple Man had been saying them…but that had been a dream, complete with corn that grew teeth and David turning into a giant Fredbear. Anything she’d heard him say—about the Puppet or some missing kid’s mother asking questions or even locking Abby Faust up in the basement—that was all spun straight out of her subconscious, following a largely sleepless night spent listening to Mike Schmidt’s ghost story. She was probably misremembering anyway, projecting Freddy’s song now onto her dream from then; human memory was like that, so much more elastic and deceitful than people liked to think, and Ana’s more than most.

The song ended. Freddy took a bow, asked the kids how they were enjoying their pizza, pushed the Funyum pizza sticks a little, told a few jokes, then suddenly looked directly at Ana. For two or three long seconds, he didn’t say anything at all, just looked at her, but when he did speak again, it was in his goofy-bear stage voice, asking if she wanted to hear a story. When no requests were forthcoming, he launched into his ‘favorite,’ Goldilocks, from the side of the three bears.

Ana listened. It was the same story, word for word, that he used to tell at Circle Drive. She’d heard it a hundred times over on Aunt Easter’s tapes, although it was a lot easier to hear him when there wasn’t a bunch of squealing kids running around or arcade machines going off in the back of the room. She’d always loved Freddy’s take on fairy tales, the way the traditional roles of hero and villain were so often swapped, not through any tricky rewriting, but just through a different perspective. She hated the endings, though. No one ever died, no one even got run off or arrested. Even in Hansel and Gretel, the witch ended up friends with the kids, who had only accidentally gotten lost in the woods and not been led out and abandoned by their parents. Freddy didn’t believe in monsters, she guessed, so how could he be one?

Ana listened to the story and thought about Mike Schmidt and Egg Minders. She wiped at her tears when she noticed them. Otherwise, she just sat and let them fall. 

“WHEN THEY CAME HOME, ONCE MORE THE DOOR WAS OPEN. PAPA BEAR TOLD HIS FAMILY TO STAY OUTSIDE WHILE HE WENT IN TO LOOK AROUND AND AT FIRST, HE DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING OUT OF PLACE. THEN HE NOTICED THE SPOONS THAT HAD BEEN LEFT ON THE TABLE WERE NOW IN THE BOWLS AND AS HE WENT TO GET A BETTER LOOK, HE SAW POOR BABY BEAR’S PORRIDGE…WAS ALL…GONE.” 

Silence.

Freddy lowered his microphone and stared at her. After a moment, he took his hat off and scratched at his head. He looked around—at the empty room, the empty stage, at her. He put his hat on, sighed, and without a word, he climbed down from the stage and walked off through the East Hall.

Ana sat and watched the empty stage, continuing the story of three innocent bears and their repeat encounters with a relentless home invader in her mind. Soon, she heard footsteps, heavy but moving fast. She did not look around. Papa Bear was heading upstairs and in a few seconds, shit was going to hit the fan for one little blonde punkass trespasser.

Bonnie burst through the plastic sheets and into the dining room. He paused, either to get his bearings or his balance, then came right for her.

Ana didn’t run. She could have, but she didn’t. She waited, and whatever happened next, she knew she deserved it.

He put his arms around her and pulled her against him, holding her until her muscles relaxed and her stiff back bent. The purple fibracene flocking his hard plastic casing scratched at her cheek as she rested her head on his shoulder. Her breath became loud and coarse in her ears. She listened to it as it came into rhythm with the cycling of Bonnie’s internal fan. Her hands could not meet when she put her arms around him. They sank into the plusher parts of his back, finding cracks like scars just beneath the fur, blindly comparing them to her own before she climbed up the sweet ruin of his body to the cracked, lacquered surface of his face. Her fingers played along his mouth. He could have bit her if he wanted to. Instead, he caught her hand in one of his and pressed it briefly to his muzzle—a kiss—before pulling it away from his teeth.

“HI THERE!” he said, too happily for the urgency quivering through his ears. “I’M YOUR BEST B-B-BUDDY, B-B-BONNIE…” The last half of his name drew itself out, low and distorted through his speaker. He twitched, clicking, and said, “I MISSED-D-D YOU. IT’S GREAT TO SEE YOU AGAIN! WHAT’S GOING ON? ARE YOU—ARE YOU—ARE YOU…OKAY!” He clicked some more, his intermittent shivers growing more frequent and more intense. “ARE YOU—ARE YOU—B-B-BACK FOR MORE F-F-FUN AT FREDDY’S!”

“Would you ever hurt me?” Ana asked, soft against his chest.

“NO WAY!” he said excitedly. His hand at the small of her back clenched; the one holding hers did not. “I NEVER-NEVER-NEVER T-T-TALK TO STRANGERS. I WOULD-D-D CHUCK WOOD…NEVER-R-R FORGET TO FLOSS.” His fan coughed and roared, making his casing vibrate against her cheek. “I WOULD-D-D…NEVER…HUR-HUR—HURRY UP! THE SHOW’S ABOUT TO START! I-I-I…WOULD…”

She felt it when he gave up. Helplessness disguised as calm kept him quiet, but she could hear him clicking steadily, still searching for just the right thing to say at an hour when he really couldn’t say anything.

“Tell me you love me,” she whispered, so no one could hear but him. “You don’t have to mean it. Just tell me you love me so I can hear it out loud one time.”

He twitched. The clicking got louder, faster…then stopped.

Softly, softly, so no one could hear but her, he sang, “ _It’s a bad, bad world we live in, with no one to be a friend._ ”

Ana laughed. In the very next breath, she was crying, but she laughed first.

Bonnie held her and sang on. “ _There ain’t no hope, there ain’t no God, there ain’t no heaven in the end. Just a sad, sad world that swallows us, but if you give me your hand—_ ” He gave hers a careful squeeze and pulled her closer, rocking her gently, almost dancing. “ _—you can be my baby girl tonight and I’ll be your man._ ”

“Thank you.” Wiping her eyes, Ana pulled just far enough away to look up into his face. She touched him, tracing the cracks back and forth across his muzzle. If only every break was as easy to fix. Just pick up the pieces, glue them together, and smooth it all out with a layer of shellac. 

“ARE YOU-YOU-YOU…” Bonnie’s ears jerked and his lenses dilated slightly. He blinked several times, shivering, and said, “OKAY!”

“Yeah. Not looking forward to explaining this to my court-appointed psychiatrist in a few years,” she muttered, wiping her eyes, “but I’m okay. Do me a favor.”

“YOU BET!”

“Don’t ask me what happened on Friday night. I don’t want to lie to you. Okay?”

His ears lowered. He twitched and said, “OKAY.”

“How long before the next set starts?”

Bonnie’s shoulder jerked and his lenses opened up again, reminding her all over of Mike and his videos, the ones he tried to make her think Aunt Easter had filmed…while she was sleeping with Erik Metzger and helping him kill people…before she went home and made smiley-face pancakes for David and Ana and took them swimming and out for sundaes. “THE NEXT SHOW STARTS IN…THIRTY-TWO MINUTES,” he said through static. His lenses were slow to constrict, but once they had, he blinked and hesitantly touched her cheek; she was crying again. 

“I’m fine,” she said, chasing his hand away to rub at her face. “Let’s go hide in the party room and make out until Freddy finds us. Okay?”

He did not say, ‘Okay,’ because it wasn’t, but he did lift her gently down from the table and give her a long hug before he took her hand and led her from the room, and that was good enough.


	4. Chapter 4

# CHAPTER FOUR

Foxy heard a loud crash during the two o’clock set. It startled him, although he supposed there was no real cause for alarm. It was plausible enough that a carload of kids had pulled up while Foxy was killing time in his cabin between shows, but Freddy never let his guard down and since he hadn’t called Foxy out to defend the restaurant, it couldn’t be anyone inside smashing the place up. 

That raised the question of just what it could be, though. After all, it had been a loud enough noise to reach all the way to Pirate Cove, which ruled out something as simple as Chica taking a tumble, and it hadn’t shaken the timbers or anything, so it couldn’t have been the roof dropping in. Maybe a firework, although Foxy would have sworn it was a bangy sort of noise, rather than a boomy one. Nothing as little as a bottle smashing up against a window and nothing as big as a car crashing through one. He would have asked Freddy to settle his curiosity, except that Freddy didn’t come. Not at the end of his set, not at the end of the next one, not all the rest of that long day. 

The longer Foxy went without seeing him, the more ominous that crash got. Maybe it hadn’t been Chica taking a tumble after all. Maybe it had been Fred himself, and if he’d managed to fall hard enough to pop his chest open (or crack his battery case…but no, that was too awful a thought for even Foxy to consider), there was nothing any of them could do to wake him up again. 

But hours later, long after closing, he heard the East Hall door open and Freddy’s distinctive footsteps enter the room at last.

“SORRY,” Freddy grumbled, while Foxy stood frozen in the bow of his ship, head down and eyes shut. “I. MEANT. TO. COME. SOONER. I. COULDN’T. GET. AWAY. SHE’S.” A pause, filled with clicking. “SLEEPY. AND.” More clicking, this time with growls threaded through it, before Freddy settled with obvious annoyance on, “SUNG. OVER. AND. SHE’S. KEPT. ME. CHASING. AFTER. HER. ALL. BEAVER DAM. DAY. OH. SORRY. WAKE UP. FOXY.”

Foxy broke from his paralysis with convulsions, digging his hook blindly into the bow of his ship to keep him on his feet until the moment passed. “A-A-Ana’s here?” he asked, shaking his head like that could dislodge the exceptions that came from terminating his closing protocol two minutes too soon.

“YES.”

“I never heard-d-d her truck pull in,” Foxy muttered, hopping down from his ship and then from the stage. “I need to be c-c-coming out more. So that was her I heard-d-d banging around?”

“YOU. HEARD. HER. ALL. THE. WAY. IN. HERE,” Freddy asked and fell into step beside Foxy, walking together to the door. “WHY. AM. I. SURPRISED. EVERY. TIME. I. TURN. AROUND. SHE’S. BUMPING. THINGS. DROPPING. THINGS. AND. CLIMBING. THINGS. IT’S. LIKE. TRYING. TO. WATCH. OVER. TEN. TODDLERS. AT. A BIRTHDAY PARTY. AFTER THE. GIFTS. ARE. OPEN. AND. THE. CAKE. IS. GONE.” 

“Ha. Listen t-t-to yer bitching. Tell the truth and shame the D-D-Devil, Fred. Yer glad she’s back.” Foxy surprised himself with a laugh. “I’m d-d-damned glad of it meself. She did not look-k-k—OFF THE PORT BOW—good last time she were here.”

“NO,” Freddy agreed, and put out his hand to catch the door as Foxy opened it and pull it shut again. “AND. SHE’S. STILL. NOT. GOOD. LISTEN. TO. ME. SOMETHING. IS. VERY. WRONG. WE. NEED. TO. BE. CAREFUL.” Freddy grumbled to himself, adding, “YOU. AND. I. ESPECIALLY. BECAUSE. GOD. KNOWS. BONNIE. WON’T. BE.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I DON’T KNOW. SHE. HASN’T. SAID. MUCH. BUT. I. DON’T. LIKE. THE. WAY. SHE’S. LOOKING. AT. US.”

Foxy pulled in a sigh and blew static rudely through his speaker. “Yer paranoid-d-d, mate. It’s served ye well all these years, aye, but this is Ana we’re talking about-t-t.”

“THAT. ONLY. MAKES. HER. MORE. DANGEROUS,” Freddy insisted. “AN-N-A. LIVES. HERE. I. CAN’T. CONTROL. EVERYTHING. SHE. SEES. AND. HEARS.” 

“Lord knows how that-t-t must gnaw at ye,” Foxy said, rolling his eyes. “Look, Fred, we ain’t-t-t always as careful as we ought-t-t to be around her, but we ain’t but b-b-broke-down toys to her. So we lets an odd word-d-d slip in her c-c—COMPANY OF ROGUES AND SINNERS—company, what of it? We animatronics. We’re old and we’re worn out-t-t and she pays us no more mind-d-d than that. Ye think she’d say half the things she tells us if she thought we was listening?”

Freddy laughed—a great booming laugh, absent all humor—and followed it with a sigh. “NO,” he said, rubbing at his muzzle. “BUT. SOMETHING. IS. WRONG. SOMETHING. HAS. CHANGED. AND. SOMEONE. IS. IN. DANGER. IF. IT’S. NOT. US. IT’S. HER. SO. WATCH. HER.” 

Foxy acquiesced with a shrug and a nod. “I’ll k-k-keep a weather eye out, mate. But ye can’t-t-t really think Ana—”

“IT. DOESN’T. MATTER. WHAT. I. THINK,” Freddy interrupted. “I. HAVE. TO. BELIEVE. THE. DANGER. IS. REAL. WHETHER. I. CAN. SEE. IT. OR. NOT.” Again, he stopped to check his sound-files, standing motionless with his head bent and his eyes skipping side to side. Note by note, the Toreador March began to play, and suddenly, Freddy shuddered and said, “I-I-I hate t-t-t-talking-ing like this.”

Foxy, restlessly scanning the hall ahead, spun around in shock. “Hell, man,” he sputtered. “How long…? Why are ye still c-c—CUTTHROATS AND THEIVES—cutting and pasting yer damn words t-t-together if ye broke through yer speech restrictions?”

“Because any b-b-br-broken word-d-d could be the one that-t-t p-p-puts me in the black-k-k for g-g-good-d-d. And I have t-t-to live. I-I-I have to k-k-keep him.”

“That-t-t ain’t only yer job, mate,” Foxy said warily. “Yer not alone here.”

Freddy’s muzzle opened, showing his teeth. It was not a smile. “I will b-b-be.”

“Hey, now—”

“I w-w-will be,” Freddy said again, his lenses shivering open even wider. “B-B-Bonnie’s g-g-going-ing-ing. He won’t-t-t last-t-t another five—NIGHTS AT—five years. Then you-you-you. Maybe-be-be sooner-er-er, if you c-c-can’t stop-p-p cutting-ing-ing yourself apart-t-t.”

Foxy recoiled, feeling impossible heat in his face and scratching at it—damn him—with his hook. 

“Chica-ca-ca’s saving-ing her v-v-voice, and I know she’s d-d-doing it for me, but-t-t she d-d-doesn’t have the heart-t-t for what-t-t I d-d-do. She’ll walk-k-k out-t-t into the desert-t-t one-one— _ONE FOR THE MASTER, ONE FOR HIS DAME_ —one night-t-t and never-never-never c-c-come back-k-k. I-I-I’ll be alone. With-th-th him. Him.” Freddy shuddered, his hands cracking as he closed them into fists. “He-He-He took-k-k everything from me. My life. My-My-My past. My future. My v-v-voice. I-I-I hate h-h-him-im-im.” He looked at Foxy, showing him eyes that were nearly full black. “I hate-ate-ate him s-so—SO MUCH FUN AT FREDDY’S!—so much-ch-ch that-t-t some—SOMEONE’S HAVING A BIRTHDAY—days, I-I-I hate every-ry-ry-thing.”

Foxy reached out a cautious hand and patted Freddy’s twitching shoulder, very aware that Freddy was not blinking. Blinking was one of those involuntary habits held over from their long-lost human origins, but when they were in the black, all the way in, they couldn’t close their eyes.

Freddy turned his head to look at him. One ear twitched, then one shoulder, but no other part of him moved, not even his mouth when he said, “It’s not-t-t a g-g-good idea to t-t-t—DON’T TOUCH FREDDY—touch me right-t-t now.”

“Take a walk-k-k, mate,” Foxy said, speaking slow and quiet, the tone he used to use with Mangle when he was trying to reach Foxanne. “Ye’ll feel better if ye get-t-t out and look around.”

Freddy stared at him, just stared, his eyes nothing but a ring of pale blue no wider than a thread around his dilated lenses, and finally nodded. “That’s a g—g-good-d-d…GOOD. IDEA.” He took a breath, fans working slow and too hard, then took another, then closed his eyes and finally opened them with the lenses small. “WATCH. HER. FOR. ME,” he said, turning around. His first step away was shaky, but he steadied the further he went. “TAKE. CARE. OF. HER. IF. YOU. CAN. BUT. WATCH. HER. EVERY. MINUTE.”

“Aye,” said Foxy, but he was talking to an empty room. He lifted his arm, realized he was about to scratch at his chest, and forced his hook down again. Five years, eh? Maybe sooner? Be easier to scoff at that if this body hadn’t been brand-bleeding-new when this restaurant was built and it already looked worse than it had when Circle Drive shut down.

Why did he do it? What did he think was going to happen when he’d cut all his skin away? All his life support systems exposed and unsupported…it was just a matter of time before his joints failed and he was reduced, like Mangle, to pulling himself along by his teeth and toenails. Or would he? Mangle’s programming had been refactored so she couldn’t go to sleep when her chest was open, but his wasn’t. He’d just be gone, shut off from all sense of self or place or time, but still alive. 

Foxy scratched at his chest, looked at his hook, then opened the door and went to find Ana.

She’d be in the dining room. She’d left a light on there anyway; he could see it at the far end of the hall, glowing grey and dim through the plastic she’d hung. It was early yet, but she’d been quiet all this time and if she’d really been running ragged all afternoon as Freddy had said, there was at least a chance she’d tuckered herself out. That’d make watching her easier, although it was a fair bet Bonnie would try to muscle him out at least once.

Well, Foxy wouldn’t push it. He’d just ask Chica to keep an eye on the girl instead. Chica had a soft spot for old Bon, but it was in her heart, not her head. Even if Bon gave her grief for it, she’d hold fast and keep a strong watch.

But Bonnie didn’t say anything when Foxy came through the plastic curtain. He didn’t even look up from where he sat on ‘his’ side of the show stage, back to the wall, one leg up and the other resting on the floor, playing his stringless guitar. His ears were at a funny angle, though. Not flat, but only turned backward. If that was saying something in ear-talk, it was a new one on Foxy.

“Evening, mates,” said Foxy, sweeping his gaze across the rest of the room. Chica was over by the old cashier’s station, now unbarricaded, swaying as she shifted her weight leg to leg and tapping her fingers together. Nervous. Why? The girl’s duffel bag was on her table next to her lit lantern, so she was probably under it.

“We g-g-got company?” Foxy asked unnecessarily, heading for the table. Bonnie didn’t answer, so he lifted the curtain the girl had hung and had a peek for himself. Empty. 

When he straightened, Chica lifted one hand and pivoted to point at the lobby.

Glancing at Bonnie—Bonnie ignored him—Foxy went over and leaned around the corner. He didn’t see her, but when he swept his ears around, his mics picked up a soft, shuddery sound. Tears? The sound was not repeated; he couldn’t be sure.

Foxy looked at Chica, who spread her hands slightly before she went back to tapping them. Hmm. If Ana was crying and Bonnie was just sitting there and listening to it, she must have told him to leave her alone. And if she didn’t want to see Bonnie, she sure didn’t want to see him.

Too bad for her.

Foxy squared his shoulders, put his jaw on straight, and strolled on into the lobby. “AHOY, LASS!” he boomed, for there she sat beside Brewster on the plastic haybale with a heap of photos, posters and papers she’d taken off the wall strewn around her feet. She still had one of them in her hand, but he couldn’t see which before she bent and scraped them all together. “What ar—ARR, ME HEARTIES!—are ye hiding in here for?”

She didn’t look at him, didn’t offer so much a halfhearted smile, just said, “I’m not hiding,” and picked up her papers.

“Thought I heard-d-d ye banging around earlier.” Foxy found a leaning spot on the cashier’s countertop and pretended to examine the newly-bared wall. “What was that-t-t all about, eh?”

“Nothing.”

“Lot o’ noise for nothing.”

“Oh for God’s sake.” Ana gathered her feet under her, ignored Foxy’s outstretched hand, and got up. “It’s nothing. I was moving some stuff I’m going to need into the gift shop, but I wasn’t…quite at my best yet.”

“Tired, were ye?” said Foxy, following her into the dining room. 

“No, I wasn’t ‘tired,’ I just kept dropping stuff. If you heard a really big one, that was me hitting that one saggy light fixture with the ladder, and then it kind of fell and I don’t care what Freddy told you, it missed me by a mile.”

Still no smile. No eye contact. She walked away from him and pretended she was a sea urchin, all prickles and poison.

Well, now. In Foxy’s not-inconsiderable experience, there were two ways to handle a sulk. Sometimes the right way was to soothe it, to offer a shoulder and a gentle voice, coax out the words and then the tears and finally the smiles. Aye. And sometimes the right way was to snap them prickles off and stab back.

“Serves ye right, ye blighter. I hope the next-t-t one hits ye in the ass.”

For someone who was going out of her way to make it plain she didn’t want sympathy, she seemed awfully surprised not to get it, wheeling around with an indignant, “Oh yeah? Well, fuck you very much, Captain Friendly!”

“Captain Fox.”

“Whatever.” Ana slapped the stack of photos and papers on her table and turned to face him. “What’s up your butt, anyway? What the hell did I do to you?”

“Ye left me hanging—FROM THE YARDARM!—is what-t-t ye did, with that b-b—BOTTLE O’ RUM. Ye know. The one ye t-t-told me to fetch for ye. I were waiting up for ye all d-d-day, all night and then some.”

“As opposed to what? Getting a full night’s sleep?”

Across the room, pretending not to be listening, Bonnie snorted.

Foxy glanced that way, but Bonnie just kept tickling his guitar and ignoring him. “Fair point,” he admitted, sliding his gaze back to Ana. “But just-t-t because I got time on me hand don’t make it yers to waste.”

“If you want to wait up all night, that’s all on you. I said I was going home.”

“Aye, and who’d ye say it t-t-to?” he countered. While she thought that over, he struck a scowling pose and loudly muttered, “Don’t know why I expects ye to g-g-give me a goodbye when ye never says hello.”

“I left my sword at home.”

“Har har,” Foxy said dryly, triggering Bonnie and Chica to laugh along. “When did ye reach port, lass?”

“I don’t know. Around noon, maybe one o’clock.”

“Aye, and here it is, nine hours later and ye still ain’t-t-t come to see me. Ye see the problem yet?”

She looked at the ceiling and sighed. “I still haven’t done a lot of stuff.”

“That yer idea of an apology? ‘I blew everything off, not just ye?’”

“Since when do your guests have to apologize for going home?”

“Oh, yer a guest now, are ye? Well, the restaurant’s closed-d-d, lass. T-T-T—TIME TO SAIL—Time for ye to leave.”

Ana put both hands on the table behind her and leaned on them, glaring.

“Aye, that’s what I thought-t-t,” growled Foxy good-humoredly. “So let’s hear that sorry and make it a g-g-good one.”

Ana thought it over and said, “Want to take a shower with me?”

Foxy raised his eyepatch, as if to get a better look at the question. “Got to admit-t-t, that’s a better one than I were fishing for.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Captain. It’s still not an apology. You stink, so you’re getting a shower.”

“With ye?”

Ana shrugged and lifted the curtain on the other side of the table, exploring the cardboard cubbyholes she’d built there. “I stink, too. Damn it, I know I brought more shirts than this…And besides, water is a luxury resource around here. Got to conserve it any way I can.”

“So.” Foxy turned all the way around and stared at Bonnie as he asked, “Just the t-t-two of us, or…?”

Bonnie watched his hand on the neck of his guitar and said nothing.

“Just the two of us,” said Ana, tucking her folded clothes into the crook of her arm and taking her lantern. “Come on, Captain.”

She left.

Foxy followed, slow enough to let her get a good head-start, but stopped at the plastic sheets and looked back at Bonnie again. “Ye sure yer all right-t-t with this?”

Bonnie banged his guitar down on the padded stage beside him and got up, ears flat, hissing through his speaker, “No, I’m not-t-t all right, you jackass! Just d-d-do it and get it over with!”

Foxy held up his good hand in a peacemaking gesture, perfectly well aware that this reaction was, at least in part, his own fault. “Look, mate, what-t-t I said before, about…I didn’t mean it. I were just-t-t getting into yer head. I ain’t going to enjoy this.”

Bonnie snorted and sat back down, fussing with his guitar without actually picking it up. “Yeah, right, I’m sure it’ll b-b-be hell for you. Hey,” he said as Foxy turned away. His ears, still flat, sagged on their pins, betraying a helplessness stronger than his frustration. “You like her, right-t-t? I mean, we don’t have to like each other, but-t-t we’re on the same side here where she’s c-c-concerned. Aren’t we?”

“Aye.”

“Something happened-d-d. She won’t t-t-tell me what it was, but if she tells you…I want-t-t to know. I need to know.”

Foxy nodded, frowning.

“All right, so…g-g-go have your shower.” Bonnie pulled his guitar onto his lap and resumed ‘playing’. “And keep your g-g-goddamned eyes shut.”

That was as close as they were ever going to get to a fond farewell, so Foxy left it at that, heading up the hall at a quick trot to the employee’s lounge. Ana was already there, just taking down a folded towel from the cupboard. It wasn’t a room Foxy often passed through, unless he were chasing someone down, and she’d made a lot of changes to it, most notably in the kitchen area. She’d taken out the sink so she could use its drain and the shower-box that replaced it wasn’t a hell of a lot wider. There was no way the two of them were going to use it together unless she sat on his shoulders, so that obviously wasn’t what she’d had in mind.

“How do ye want-t-t it, luv?” Foxy asked, meaning, ‘Where do I stand?’

She looked at him, and maybe it was just a little of Freddy’s paranoia and Bonnie’s general Bonnie-ness rubbing off on him, but something in that look put Foxy without warning right back in Mulholland’s party room, waiting for the customer to quit their giggling and start the real show. The feeling was so strong, that Foxy took a step back without thinking, just to take himself out of that submissive stance and that much further away from her, from _Ana_ , who meant him no harm and had never even been in Mulholland.

And she looked at him like she knew why he’d done that, too.

Imagining things, Foxy told himself brusquely, taking back the space he’d put between them and then some.

She didn’t retreat. Not nervously, not laughing, not at all. She let him step right up close and did not give an inch, but after a moment, she looked at the shower. She bent to take off one of her boots, saying, “I’ll go first. I’ll try to save you as much water as I can.”

Foxy glanced at the box in the window, running an assessing eye over the bulging rubber bag she kept there. Three gallons at most. “Not a lot to share,” he observed.

“I’ve done worse, believe me. I once spent three months bathing out of a coffee pot and still had enough water left over to fix a cup of coffee. We’ll be fine.” She took her socks off, tucked them into her boots, and set them on the counter next to her clean clothes. “You going to leer at me when I get naked?”

“Well, I am now.”

She started to smile, but didn’t get very far along with it. “Then stand there,” she ordered, pointing at the narrow space between the shower-box and the lockers. “And wait.”

Foxy obediently took his appointed place where he could see nothing but the far end of the room while she rustled out of her clothes and stepped into the stall. He heard the overloud patter of those first drops of water falling on a dry plastic floor and then that slippery-soft sound of skin on skin as she wet herself down. He found that with a little imagination, he could tell exactly what parts she was touching and how, just by the sound. He also found that he could be a damned imaginative fellow, with the proper motivation.

“I want to talk to you.”

“I’m listening,” said Foxy and he was. Oh, he was. Shaking his head, he made an effort to put the pirate in him at arm’s reach and said, “What’s on yer mind-d-d, luv?”

“Thing is…I need to know that you’ll tell me the truth. Can you do that?”

Foxy snorted, intrigued in spite of himself. “I oughtn’t to be yer first-t-t choice, that’s for sure.”

“You’re not, but Freddy doesn’t trust me, Chica doesn’t talk, and Bonnie…Bonnie doesn’t want to hurt me.”

“So I be yer last-t-t choice.” Foxy chuckled and shrugged. “Aye, all right. Truth it is. A-A—ANCHORS AWEIGH!—Ask away.”

“How old are you?”

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that. And since his internal clock did not keep count of the months or years, he genuinely did not know the answer, making him take the time to come up with a next-best guess, which was time enough to realize what an odd question it really was. Freddy was right; something was wrong.

“Weren’t g-g-given an age, lass,” he replied, putting a friendly growl in his voice to cover the caution. “Reckon I’m old enough.”

She didn’t ask the obvious question, giving him the chance to steer the conversation safely into ribald humor. Instead, she said, “Where were you before you came here?”

And what was that about?

“Sailing the sev-v-ven seas,” he replied without hesitation. “Pillaging, d-d-drinking and wenching. SAY HEY FOR THE LIFE OF A PIRATE.”

That quieted her, but it was an unnerving sort of quiet. When she shut the water off, it got quieter still. Foxy’s notion of what people did in the shower was limited to washing off and maybe fucking, but Ana wasn’t moving. She just stood there in her little plastic box, facing the wall like a child waiting for the knife, dripping.

After a moment, Foxy hooked her towel and offered it out where she could see it, giving the thin wall between them a knock so she’d know to look. She didn’t take it right away, but she did take it. He heard her bump around some as she dried herself off in that small space. She made no other sound. He couldn’t even hear her breathing.

“Got to b-b-be honest with ye, luv,” Foxy remarked, running his gaze around the room in search of something to look at. “This ain’t as much fun as I thought it was g-g-going to be.”

“What kind of fun did you think we’d be having?” 

“Don’t know. More’n this.”

“Sorry to hear that. I guess I’m not in the mood to have fun.” 

“Shouldn’t have c-c-come to Freddy’s then. FUN IS ALWAYS ON THE MENU.”

“Yeah. That’s what they tell me.” With a final rustle-thump, Ana appeared, wrapped in her towel and holding the ends together as high to her neck as she could get it. This was fine with Foxy, as, given the limited size of the towel, pulling at the top brought the bottom to within an inch of her nethers. He tried not to look, since an animatronic wouldn’t look, but bare from her toes to her thighs—aye, and Foxy was a leg-man from long back—with her hair tumbling in wet curls all the way to her hips, every damn inch of her pulled at the eye. Foxy managed to keep his gaze fixed on the far wall, but his mind sure wandered, and mostly what he thought as he watched Ana’s shadow drop her towel and rub lotion over her smooth, strong, curvy shadow-body was that Bonnie was one lucky son of a bunny.

“You about ready?” Ana asked, wiping her shadow-hands off by running them over her breasts and belly.

“Oh aye,” said Foxy, just thinking his thoughts and watching the wall. “Ye?”

“Just about.” Ana stepped into a pair of panties, then pulled on a fresh shirt. She picked up her jeans only to put them down again after a brief pause. Reclaiming her discarded towel, she folded it lengthwise twice, then draped it over her arm and gestured at the shower-box. “Okay. Hop in. What are you doing?”

Foxy paused in the act of picking loose the knot of the rope holding his breeches on. “Taking me keks off,” he said, puzzled. “I’d ask ye t-t-to wash ‘em for me, but they’d just fall to threads. It ain’t-t-t but the dirt holding ‘em together now. Why?” he asked and winked. “Ye going to leer at me if I gets naked?”

She didn’t leer, or smile, but she might have blushed, just a little. Hard to tell in this light.

“Funny, ain’t it?” Foxy drawled, pushing his breeches all the way down so he could step out of them with the least chance of catching the ragged fabric on his metal toe-claws. “None o’ the others c-c-cover their hind ends, and I’d wager ye ain’t-t-t noticed nor much cared. But yer going to look at this ass when I g-g-gets in that shower.”

“Just get in,” she said coolly, but aye, she was definitely blushing.

Chuckling, Foxy obeyed, standing toe to toe with her, close enough to hold, if he were so inclined.

Ana lay her folded towel on the floor right against the shower, to catch any spillage, he guessed, and stood on it.

“You nervous?” she asked, pulling the hose over his shoulder and readying her sponge-ball with a few squirts of soap.

“Nerves of steel, luv. Literal-like. Why do ye ask?”

“You’ve got more of an open-air design than the others.” Ana ran her fingers along the widest crack in his chest-casing. “You’re not going to short out, are you?” 

“They used to swab-b-b—THE DECK—us down at the end of each day with a p-pr-pressure hose, lass, inside and out. Ye c-c-could chuck me in the ocean and do me no harm.”

“Wouldn’t do you much good.” She sprinkled him with a little water, just to wet him down. Stray drops inevitably splashed back on her, making her pale shirt transparent where wet. She had some more ink under there, dark shapes in long patches just above her breasts, but if Foxy could look, he sure wouldn’t be looking at that. He kept his eyes on hers, like a bleeding gentleman, as she stepped right up close to start the scrubbing with his ears. She said something he couldn’t hear through the pop and crackle of soap on his microphones, but after a moment, she glanced at him, rinsed him off and said again, “You can’t swim.”

“Yer forgetting that rogue, Blackmane, walked-d-d me off the plank when he led the mutiny what made him captain o’ the Pride.”

“Mm-hmm. And you swam all the way to Albatross Island. Except you’re an animatronic and you don’t have the buoyancy or the surface resistance to stay afloat, so you can’t swim.” She washed his eyes, vanishing behind a curtain of white suds, then rinsed him off. With her arms raised up, water sluiced along her skin to wet even more of her t-shirt for Foxy to not notice. “The stories you tell about yourself…are they who you really are?”

Foxy could feel the bite in those words even if he couldn’t see the teeth. He looked at her, her serious face distorted through drops and runnels of water on his lenses, and said, “The stories ye t-t-tell about yerself, are they who ye really ar—ARR!”

“You’re dodging the question.”

“I answered it,” said Foxy. “Ye d-d-don’t like the answer, ask me another.”

“How many times have you been washed?”

Another way of asking how old he was. Like her t-shirt said, clever girl.

“Every night this pl-pl-place were open. Plus one.” He nodded at the nozzle in her hand. “How many t-t-t—TIME TO SAIL—times is that?”

“Not so many that you shouldn’t be able to count them.”

“Me memory space be limited-d-d. Had to pick the things I wanted t-t-to remember. Hosing off ain’t high—SEAS!—on the list.” He dropped his eyepatch in a wink and left it down while she wiped it. “I’ll b-b-be remembering this one for a while, if that’s any c-c-consolation to ye.”

“You do a lot of consoling in the pirate biz, Captain?”

“More than ye’d think-k-k. Kids cry.” Foxy rolled one shoulder. “I scare ‘em.”

“Pirates are supposed to be scary.” Ana lifted his eyepatch for him, dried his lens with her thumb, and then just looked at him for a while, eye to eye.

Foxy kept quiet and waited, but it wasn’t an easy wait nor an easy quiet.

“Open your mouth,” said Ana.

The hinges in his jaw creaked on an upward lilt, like a question.

Ana washed his muzzle in a few broad strokes, then his fore-teeth, and then put her hand all the way inside his mouth to get at his back-teeth. Those sensors were working just fine, unfortunately, and it took a lot of internal effort to override his bite reflex as she triggered it over and over with each nudge of her fingers, each drop of water.

At last, she withdrew her arm, swabbed out the interior cavities of his muzzle, and sprayed him down. The sound of water pouring away down his throat into his empty stomach was very loud, especially after Ana shut off the nozzle to listen.

“Where’s that going?” she asked, eyeing the cracks in his chest.

“C-Collection pouch in me gut,” Foxy replied, his even tone belying his frantic thoughts as he tried to remember if he was empty down there.

“So you can eat,” Ana said, but softly, as if to herself. Her next words were a little louder. “What do you eat, Captain?”

“Don’t know. Pizza, most-t-t like. Don’t recollect if I ever did-d-d.”

“Hold these,” said Ana, giving over the hose and sponge. When he had them, she dug her fingers under the edge of his loin-casing.

Foxy dropped the hose and caught her wrist before the nozzle could hit the wall. “Not th-there,” he said, trying to sound casual as he directed her to his abdomen-casing instead. He still couldn’t remember if his stomach was empty or not, but he could explain a few finger-bones a hell of a lot easier than he could explain his dick. “Here.”

She opened him up. He didn’t look, but he felt the tug and all the little vibrations as she fished around in there.

“Where’s the…? There it is,” she murmured, then took her hose back, stuck it down his throat and flushed a few chunks of gunk out of him on a stream of water. She seemed to study those chunks fairly close as they swirled around their feet, but they broke up on the drain, just dust matted up with congealed blood or machine grease, and if he couldn’t tell the difference, neither could she.

“Not a d-d-drop o’ rum,” Foxy said, because he knew damned well that wasn’t what she was looking for. “Ain’t that-t-t a pity?”

Ana took the hose out of him, capped off his stomach again, closed him up, and proceeded to scrub off his arms, all in silence. She did his chest the same way, then not so surprisingly opened it, dashing Foxy into nothingness. He came back two minutes later, cleared the discrepancy between his internal clock and activity log, and watched her rinse him off. Had she opened his groin while he was out? Didn’t seem like a lot of time, but it didn’t take much, did it? He couldn’t tell by looking at her and he’d been reading inflexible faces his whole life. 

“D-Doubloon for yer thoughts, luv,” he said at last.

“No deal. Your treasure’s cursed.”

“So ye give it b-b-back and I gives ye a dip in the birthday booty chest-t-t. Get ye some shiny swag as fair—WINDS AND FOLLOWING—price for yer fretful thoughts.”

“What makes you think they’re fretful?”

After a short internal debate (very short; Foxy wasn’t one to wrestle over matters of conscience), he put his good hand over hers to stop her cleaning, then touched a metal finger to her cheek, just under her eye. “Ain’t much about me that-t-t still works like it should,” he said. “But me facial scanners do. And they t-t—TELL NO TALES—tells me yer sad.”

She lifted her chin slightly, not blinking, not shying away. “Do they tell you why?”

“No. I reckon that-t-t were one o’ those things I was supposed to get better at the more I d-d-did it,” Foxy added with another seemingly careless shrug. “But this place c-cl-closed and I never had-d-d but them few days to practice. So ye’ll just have t-t-to tell me.”

For a second, he thought she might. He could see it, whatever ‘it’ was, close behind those brilliantly blue eyes, but then she blinked and it was gone.

“Turn around,” she said. 

“Eh?”

Ana held up her sponge, as if to remind him why they were here; he had, in fact, forgotten. “I want to get your back.”

Foxy turned around, nose right up to the plastic wall, and listened as she scrubbed. Now and then, he could feel it—intermittent sensations of pressure and weight passed on by his functioning sensor plates and the phantom impressions of warm water and soft skin for which he had no frame of reference at all. It felt good, on the outside anyway. On the inside, not so much, which was a bit off-putting to his enjoyment of the outside-parts, although not so much that he didn’t notice when she got down on her knees.

“Can I ask you a question?” she said, as his sensor-plates between his legs unemotionally registered the slow back and forth motion of her hand.

Eyes fixed on the wall, Foxy said, “Ye have me full attention.”

“Do you remember telling me about the night you lost your hat?”

He did, but it took a second. “Aye, but it-t-t weren’t lost—AT SEA. It were stolen.”

“Right.” Her hand moved slightly down the inside of his thigh and back up again. She put her other hand on his hip, for balance. “And then what happened?”

“Eh?”

“The guy took your hat.” She turned the hose on, directing its little spray into her palm and rinsing him that way, with her bare hand. “What did you do about it?”

“Ran after him,” said Foxy, which was the truth, adding, “He got-t-t away with it,” which was not.

“I think you’re lying to me.”

“Do ye? That’s a shame, for I used to b-b-be a fair dab hand at lying and ye shouldn’t have p-p-picked up on it so soon.”

“You told me you scuttled him. That you could have, and I’m quoting you directly here, buried what pieces of eight you left of him in that damn hat. End quote. Turn around.”

He turned, keeping his eyes fixed on the far wall well behind her and not on the girl herself, on her knees before him. “I don’t recall saying that-t-t, but if that’s what ye say I said-d-d, I won’t argue. I only got-t-t so much memory space. Reckon I can trust to yers…unless ye c-c-can think o’ some reason I shouldn’t.”

She laughed, low and throaty, and looked up at him through her hair. “Is that your subtle way of reminding me I was high?”

“Maybe.”

“Subtlety is not your strong suit, Captain.”

“So ye’ve told me.”

“And that, you remember, huh?”

“Weren’t as long ago. And I thin-k-k I want to hold on to that night awhile, if’n I c-c-can.”

“Why?”

“I liked the way ye looked.”

She looked up at him, unsmiling, wary. “Why?”

“Don’t know,” he said, almost honestly. “I shouldn’t, I know that-t-t. Maybe it were yer wet t-t-togs or the fact that ye left half of ‘em at home. Maybe…just-t-t because ye came at all. Because ye thought-t-t we needed ye. Because…” Her hand was still on his hip, distracting him. He looked at it, fascinated by the juxtaposition of metal bones and living skin and by the glints of red—his reflection—in all those tiny beads of water caught up in her hair. “…Because when ye’ve b-b-been forgotten as long as we have…anyone’s beautiful who remembers ye.”

Her brows pinched slightly. She did not speak.

“So,” he said. “I’ve answered yer qu-qu—QUEST FOR THE—questions. Time for ye to answer one o’ mine.”

She still didn’t speak, but the thin skin around her eyes tightened. 

He wanted to ask what had happened to her on Friday night, but he could see it was what she was expecting. Foxy didn’t like being predictable. More than that, it wasn’t the sort of question an animatronic ought to ask, so the fact that she was expecting it felt Freddy-level dangerous.

“What is it ye really-ly-ly want to know?” he asked instead.

Her stare held a moment, then wavered and finally fell. She touched her sponge to his knee and made a few lackluster passes before she let it drop. She knelt in silence, her head bent and hands in her lap, while Foxy waited her out and at last, she brushed at her face and stood up.

She rinsed him off with the last of the water, patted him dry, then hung her towel over the side of the shower-box while avoiding his eyes. “You’re done. Hop out.”

Foxy stepped out of the shower-box, disturbing pockets of water inside him that then washed down his legs and formed greyish-brown puddles around his metal feet. Despite this proof that his innards were still fairly grungy, his outsides looked good. Still cracked, still worn, but clean and that made all the difference. Motioning toward her folded jeans, he casually said, “Ye going t-t-to wear those?”

“I was,” she said, also looking at them. “But then I realized I’d just get them wet and now there doesn’t seem much point in wearing them just to go down the hall, except that if I don’t, I’m dead-sure to bump into Freddy, and he’ll bitch me out for not having enough clothes on.” She looked back at him. “Why? You want them?”

“Don’t need-d-d ‘em,” he said, which was not quite an answer. “Just used to ‘em, that’s all.”

“Like Freddy and his hat.” She passed them over. “Yeah, sure. Tell you what, I’ll see if I can find you a new costume. Hat, coat, pants, boots—the works.”

“Ye mean that?”

“Sure. It doesn’t pay to lie to pirates.”

“That it don’t,” Foxy agreed, rolling up the leg sleeves to make working his metal parts and jagged plastic through it easier. “As many a rogue has learned-d-d to his cost. But it don’t p-p-pay to be too honest neither.”

“Why not?” Ana asked, watching him dress. She smiled, sort of, with nothing but her mouth. “Would you ever hurt me, Captain?”

“Course I would-d-d.”

Her smile faded, then came back true, like it was a comfort.

“How d-d-do I look?” he asked, zipping himself up.

“Ridiculous.”

“Aye.” But it covered his bones all the way to his feet, so as silly as he looked, he was grateful. Foxy retrieved the length of rope he’d been using for a belt and threaded it through the loops. His new keks had been designed for hips a great deal rounder than his own. “Speaking o’ the ceiling—”

Ana sighed. “Yeah, I know. But if I can keep Freddy from hovering over me all damn day, I’ll get up on the roof tomorrow and, with luck, start pulling it down.”

“Anything we c-c-can do to help?”

“Stay out of my way.”

Foxy nodded, unsurprised. “Can’t be easy to do a job-b-b like that on yer own.”

“I’m used to it.”

She was being stupid and stubborn and he thought they both knew it, but he also knew he wasn’t going to change her mind with facts, so he dropped it and simply said, “Yer on track, then?”

“Hardly. But it is what it is.” Ana pushed her hair back, combing through it several times with her fingers before she started to braid it. “It is what it is,” she said again, scarcely above a whisper. “Whatever happened, happened and I can’t change it by feeling bad now. Right?”

She wasn’t talking to him, he knew that, but she was talking, which gave him a good reason to finally ask, “What happened?”

She shook her head, shook it again, and suddenly said, “That guy I met on Friday…he…”

Foxy’s hand found his hip, where no sword presently hung. “He what?”

Ana just shook her head again. “I tried to talk to someone about it yesterday and that was…a mistake. A bad mistake. So I went home…to my cousin’s house, I mean. I found something there that belonged to someone else. It’s not a good place anymore.” She wiped her eyes, looked at her fingers, and kept her back to Foxy. “Maybe it was never a good place.”

Silence.

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said. “Everyone who ever lived there is dead. Can I tell you something?”

“Aye.”

“There’s this thing called an Egg Minder. It’s a tray you put your eggs in and it scans them or something and lets you know how fresh they are every minute of every day. That’s a real thing. That really exists.” She looked at him. “Do you believe that?”

Foxy shrugged. “Don’t-t-t matter. Whether it be real or not-t-t, that don’t mean ye have to buy it and spend-d-d the rest o’ yer life looking at eggs, do it?”

Her brows lifted slightly, then drew together.

Surprised, Foxy blurted, “G-G—GREAT NEPTUNE’S GHOST—girl, did that _help?_ ”

“Yeah.” She puffed out a short laugh. “Yeah, I think it actually did.”

“Well, that’s going in me d-d-diary, that is.” He flexed his fingers to break their hold on his absent sword and gave her a careful clap to the shoulder. “Come on with ye, lass. C-C-C—COME ON IN TO PIRATE COVE—and pass a b-b-bottle with me.”

“I don’t want to get drunk,” she said, then sighed again and looked over her shoulder in the general direction of the kitchen. “I want to get high.”

“Whatever floats yer b-b-boat, luv, long as yer sailing. Ye coming?” he called, heading for the door.

“You promise not to take advantage of me?”

“Nope.”

She laughed again, as Foxy hoped she would, and then, as Foxy knew she would, she followed him.


	5. Chapter 5

# CHAPTER FIVE

Bonnie did not consciously count the seconds that Ana was gone, but in spite of his determination not to be a jealous dick, he could not help but note that Foxy left with Ana about a quarter after ten and did not come back with her until half past two in the freaking morning. 

“That was a long shower,” Bonnie said as Foxy shrugged the plastic sheets aside and ducked through, carrying Ana, half-naked and sound asleep, in his arms. “What the h-h—HI THERE!—hell are you wearing-ing-ing?”

“Her jeans. Aye, that’s right, I got in her p-p-pants first. Eat yer heart-t-t out,” Foxy growled cheerily, switching on his eyes to scan the room and nodding when Chica waved. “Freddy around-d-d?”

A grunt from the South Hall was his answer and then Freddy switched on his own eyes and came out of the dark, watching as Foxy knelt down beside the table and tucked Ana away. “IS. SHE. SLEEPING.”

“Eh, sleep may b-b-be a light word for it,” said Foxy, leaning up against the wall. “She’s got t-t-three joints and half a bottle o’ rum in her. She’s out-t-t. Wouldn’t wake for it even if the horns o’ judgment were to blow out’n her ass.”

“You are such-ch-ch a charmer,” Bonnie muttered, putting his guitar aside and struggling up onto his feet. He was walking much better these days since Ana had worked on his knees, but getting up and down was still hard. “Did she t-t-talk?”

“Oh aye. Three joints and half a b-b—BOTTLE OF RUM, didn’t I say? After a certain p-p-point, I couldn’t shut her up.”

Before Bonnie could ask what was wrong, his knee gave out and he dropped stiff-legged back onto the stage. 

Grumbling, Freddy crossed the room in long, impatient strides to pick him up like a child and thump him on his feet. “WE’RE. NOT. TALKING. HERE,” he said and pointed at the hall. “BONNIE. STAY. AND. WATCH. HER.”

“The hell I will.”

Freddy, already walking away, turned around. “BONNIE. I. HAVE. SPENT. ALL. DAY. CHASING. HER. AROUND. THIS. BUILDING. AND. I. AM. NOT. IN. THE.” He paused, clicking and scowling. “MOO. TO. LISTEN. TO. YOU. TELL. ME. NOTHING. IS. WRONG.”

“Freddy,” Bonnie replied, mimicking his tone with savage accuracy, “I spent at least-t-t three hours off and on holding her while she c-cr-cried. I don’t need-d-d you to tell me something-ing-ing’s wrong. You want her watched-d-d? You watch her. I’m going t-t-to hear this.”

Before Freddy could answer, Foxy quietly said, “I think-k-k we all need to hear this, Fred. Ye don’t want to do it-t-t here, let’s move on, but let’s do it quick-k-k and get on with it.”

Freddy looked back and forth between them for a long minute, then went over to the table and looked beneath it for an even longer minute, but at the end of it, the glaring angle went out of his eyelids. He picked Ana’s limp arm up and tucked it next to her on the mattress, rested his hand briefly on her head, then straightened and let the curtain fall. “ALL RIGHT,” he said. “THE QUIET ROOM. GO.”

They went, Chica toddling on ahead to hold the plastic open for those of them with ears. Before he followed, Foxy picked up Ana’s duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder.

“What are you d-d-doing with that?” Bonnie asked.

“Ye’ll know soon enough, mate.” Foxy attempted to scrape the loose stack of papers Ana had taken off the lobby wall together, then gave up and gestured at it. “Get these for me, would-d-d ye?”

Bonnie obeyed, looking them over in confusion as he did so. Happy kids. Freddy on stage. Chica with a birthday cake. Him with his guitar. Lots of newspaper articles, but only the ones gushing over the various openings and special events. Silly stuff, and all of it ten or twenty or even forty years old. He couldn’t see anything Ana would want to keep, much less Foxy.

“What are these for?” he asked.

“For Freddy,” said Foxy. “Might not-t-t need ‘em, but I likes to be prepared and Freddy b-b-believes more in what he sees than what-t-t he feels.”

“Prepared-d-d for what?”

“Look, mate. I know it ain’t-t-t in yer nature, but I need ye to t-t-trust me. We’re on the—PORT SIDE—same side, remember?”

“Yeah, right.”

“Then let-t-t me do the talking here, eh?” Foxy gave whatever was in the duffel bag a grim sort of pat and started walking. “It’s apt to g-g-get pricklish.”

They went to the quiet room and once they were all squeezed inside amid Ana’s tools and work-benches, Freddy folded his arms and said, “WHAT. DO. YOU. KNOW.”

“Not much,” said Foxy, setting the duffel bag down and tapping the place next to it to show Bonnie where to put the papers. “But that-t-t ain’t what yer after, is it? Ye want to know what I think-k-k, and I think yer right. We’re in trouble.”

“This is what you c-c-call being on her side?” Bonnie snapped, ears flat.

“BONNIE. BE. QUIET. OR. GET. OUT,” Freddy said, and after Bonnie had shuffled back and folded his arms to scowl at the floor, turned his gaze on Foxy. “HOW?”

“Is she ok-k-kay?” Bonnie asked.

Foxy rolled one shoulder in a less-than-comforting answer to both of them, but addressed himself to Bonnie. “She will b-b-be. She had a bad t-t—TIME TO SAIL—time, aye, but she’ll shake it off.”

“What happened?” Bonnie asked at once, fighting the bilious pulse inside him that beat out ‘ _him and not me she told him and not me_ ’ like a headache.

Foxy took a long time thinking over his answer before he said, “Don’t know, really.”

“You just said-d-d—”

“I know what I said-d-d, but the problem is, once ye loosen her up-p-p enough to talk at all, she’s too loose to t-t-talk sense.”

Freddy grunted disapproval and opened the door to aim his ears at the dining room.

“And she plays it c-cl-close,” Foxy continued, watching him too casually. “Aye, she let a few d-d-drops spill once I got her in her cups, but I never got-t-t the full story and the bits I d-d-did get don’t need to be repeated. The important-t-t thing is—”

“Bits like what?” pressed Bonnie.

“Come on now, mate, I c-c-can’t wind ye up like that. Ye have me word-d-d—”

“Fuck your word. What did she t-t-tell you?”

“Nothing plain,” Foxy said irritably. “If she d-d-did, I’d tell ye, mate. I would. But she didn’t. I got nothing for ye b-b-but guesswork. It can’t help, it might-t-t hurt, and it ain’t the part o’ the story that needs telling here.” 

“THAT’S ENOUGH,” said Freddy, and then, to Bonnie’s astonishment, he turned to Foxy and said, “DID. SHE. TELL. YOU. WHAT. HAPPENED. TO. HER. YES. OR. NO.”

Foxy slid him a narrow stare, but Freddy folded his arms and stared back, and after a short, tense silence, Foxy said, “No. She just-t-t told me what she did about it.”

“WHAT. SHE. DID,” said Freddy, pointing at the ground, either to indicate the building in a general way or the basement in particular. “THAT. MADE. HER. COME. BACK. HERE.”

“Hell, man, she’d-d-d have come back anyway. Ye couldn’t-t-t keep her out if ye fired her from a cannon.”

“YES. OR. NO. FOXY.”

Foxy sighed and found a leaning spot on the big tool chest behind him. “Aye.”

“THEN. I. WANT. TO. HEAR. IT.”

“Have a heart-t-t, man. Bad enough I got her drunk and made her t-t-tell me. Now ye want me to spread-d-d it around?”

Freddy gave his own chest a slap, growling, “I. NEED. TO. KNOW. WHAT. IS. HAPPENING. IN. MY. HOUSE. SO. START. TALKING. AND. TELL. THE. TRUTH. THAT’S AN ORDER.”

After a short burst of static and a few spastic starts, Foxy said, “She kept-t-t talking about…bad blood.”

“WHAT. DOES. THAT. MEAN.”

“Not sure. It all b-b-be knotted up in her head somehow with sex, so…best-t-t I can piece it together is, this bloke she met-t-t up with on Friday last, might have— _might have,_ ” he emphasized with a glance at Bonnie, “worked her over—BOARD! That ain’t-t-t the part that’s weighing on her heaviest, so…make o’ that what ye will.”

Something touched him. Bonnie looked around dazedly and saw Chica’s hand on his arm. He gave it a pat, unsure whether he were comforting her or she was comforting him. Worked her over. The words had meaning, he just couldn’t quite get them to hold still long enough to get a good grasp on what that meaning was. Not weighing on her, that was what kept coming back on him. Because no matter what ‘worked her over’ meant, it would bother her. It took a lot of ‘working over’ before you just got used to it. 

“Ana’s mum weren’t married-d—TO THE SEA!” Foxy was saying. “Or at least, she weren’t-t-t married to Ana’s pap, and I gather her aunt weren’t married when she had-d-d her cousin-chap, so I reckon the whole family’s got a reputation for being a wee bit loose in the knees. I see ye wondering what the hell this has to do with anything,” he added as Bonnie opened his mouth to ask just that. “Trust-t-t me when I say it’s about to become significant.”

Freddy grumbled without words and took his hat off to rub at his head. “GO. ON.”

“Well, she talked-d-d to someone about whatever happened with the bloke…but not a friend-d-d, from what I can glean, which to me own mind limits just who it c-c-could have been. Now, Ana ain’t-t-t said what she told this other lady and she ain’t said what that lady told-d-d her, exactly, beyond that whatever happened were her own fault-t-t on account o’ that bad blood. So Ana went home, got-t-t drunk, and found sommat that belonged-d-d to the fellow what lived there betwixt Ana moving in and her aunt-t-t moving out.”

“SOME. THING. TO. DO. WITH. US.”

“Maybe. More like to d-d-do with Mulholland. No, she d-d-didn’t say so,” Foxy said before Freddy could ask. “That could-d-d just be me own feeling. She never c-c-came right out and said the word, nor any word I’d c-c-consider damning. Even in her cups, Ana’s chary as the Devil himself…but she did let slip-p-p about a collection.” 

Bonnie’s fan revved and he wasn’t alone. ‘Collection’ could mean a lot of things, of course. Stamps. Coins. Comic books. But for him and for all them who had been a part of the Purple Man’s game, ‘collection’ meant something very specific: a set of wire shelves in the basement with spare mascot heads in neat rows, arranged oldest on top and freshest on the bottom, so none of them would drip on the others…

“Of what?” Bonnie asked.

“She didn’t say,” said Foxy. “Souvenirs from Mulholland-d-d is me own guess, based on…” He hesitated, looking at Freddy, who tapped a finger on his stomach-casing in a brooding fashion, but who did not volunteer information. “Based on a number of things,” Foxy concluded, pushing himself off the tool-chest and reaching for Ana’s duffel bag. “But mainly this’n. Now, don’t-t-t none of ye blow a gasket, and especially ye, lass.”

“WHO, ME?” Chica chirped, eyebrows raised.

Foxy opened the main flap, dipped a hand in, visibly winced, and pulled out—

“BABYCAKES,” said Chica. She took a step back, bumped the wall and let her arms drop to her sides. Her fan revved and revved and revved, until thin wisps of smoke began to curl up through her joints.

“Calm yer nuggets, luv.” Foxy gave the cupcake a shake so they could all hear it rattle. “It’s broken.”

“SHE’LL. FIX. IT,” said Freddy without hesitation, but just as immediately waved the danger away with a dismissive pass of his hand. “IT. DOESN’T. MATTER. GO. ON. FOXY.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Bonnie said, patting Chica’s shivering shoulder. “Even if she fixes B-B-Babycakes, she’s way too b-b-big to set it off and _he’s_ g-g-got to have a monitor to see anything-ing-ing, right?” 

“THERE’S. NO. POWER,” Freddy agreed, adding with a careless shrug, “OF. COURSE. SHE. MIGHT. FIX. THAT. TOO. I. WOULDN’T. PUT. IT. PAST. HER. BUT. IF. SHE. DOES. THEN. ALL. THE.—” He tapped one of his eyes, unable to say the word he wanted, even if he had a soundbite for ‘camera’. “—WILL. BE. ON. AND. ANYWAY. HE. HAS. TO. KNOW. SOMEONE. IS. HERE. BY. NOW. SO. IT. STILL. DOESN’T. MATTER. GO. ON. FOXY.” 

“And suddenly-ly-ly you’re okay with that?” Bonnie blurted.

Freddy gave him a Look. “THERE’S. ONLY. ONE. WAY. TO. STOP. HER. ARE. YOU. OKAY. WITH. THAT.” As Bonnie lowered his ears, Freddy sighed. “I’M. WORRIED. ABOUT. HER. BONNIE. BUT. RIGHT. NOW. I. HAVE. TO. BE. MORE. WORRIED. ABOUT. WHAT. SHE’S. FOUND. AND. WHAT. SHE’S. STILL. LOOKING. FOR. SO. LET’S. TALK. ABOUT. THAT. AND. THEN. I’LL. DECIDE. WHAT. TO. DO. ABOUT. IT.” Freddy looked at Foxy. “GO. ON.” 

“She said-d-d something about a b-b-book. Pictures. A playroom.” Foxy shrugged. “Course, she also said-d-d something about a clock-k-k and a bunny and lord-d-d knows what that means.”

“A bunny?” Bonnie echoed, ears flopping forward in surprise. “Me?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. One o’ yer plushies, b-b—BY THE DOCKS—by the sound of it. She d-d-didn’t like it, whatever it was. Says it keeps c-c-coming back, whatever that means. And she d-d-don’t believe in ghosts. Must have said that half a hundred t-t-t—TIME TO SAIL—times.” Foxy raised the cupcake higher and gave it a little shake in Chica’s direction; Chica flinched. “She’s g-g-going to spring this on ye, lass.”

“WHY?” Chica asked, leaning into Freddy’s side until Freddy put his arm around her.

“How?” Bonnie corrected. “It d-d-doesn’t even work! It’s just a…a stupid cupcake t-t-toy, for all she knows!”

“SHE’LL. FIX. IT,” Freddy said again, rubbing Chica’s back.

“I tell ye, it ain’t-t-t about Baby-bloody-cakes!” Foxy insisted. “She d-d-don’t know what it is. She don’t know what it d-d-does. No, she just-t-t wants to look ye in the eye when ye sees it the first-t-t—MATE—first time, lass. She thinks, and I’m quoting here, ‘If she rec-c-cognizes it, then it’s real.’ End quote. She says it means ye were there, the real ye, right along with Hotpants. This be the egg minder, and…and Nate and all the other eggs it’s k-k-keeping, those are real too.”

“The hell d-d-does that mean?” Bonnie asked. “What eggs? Who’s Hotpants and who the hell is Nate? Is that…Is that-t-t the guy she met on Friday?”

Foxy rolled his eyes in exasperation and banged Babycakes down on the table hard enough to make it let out a distorted giggle. “I don’t know! Ye can glean anything from that-t-t? How many t-t-times has I got to say she were dr-dr— _DRUNKEN SAILOR_ —drunk? I only mention it at-t-t all to point out that’s the chain o’ her flawless reasoning. That if ye rec-c-cognize the bugger, ye were there. Not that it were used-d-d to lay the wee ones out or that ye c-c-carried them off to him, lass. Not one bleeding word did our g-g-girl say about children t-t-taken or killed, and Ana with a missing c-c-cousin of her own, eh? Eh? If ye recognize B-B-Babycakes, ye were at Mulholland. That’s the hook-k-k and the fish she’s hoping to catch. Does that sound-d-d like she knows anything at all about-t-t us? About _him_?”

Freddy shook his head, but Bonnie didn’t breathe easy—well, he didn’t breathe at all, but whatever he was doing, he wasn’t doing it easily, not yet. Freddy was still thinking.

“WHAT. DO. YOU. THINK. IT. MEANS,” Freddy asked at long last. “WHAT. DO. YOU. THINK. SHE’S. TRYING. TO. DO.”

Foxy put the cupcake back in Ana’s bag and closed it up again. He took his time with it and when he was done, he just stared at the wall, scratching his hook slowly back and forth along one of the shallower grooves on his chest. “I think-k-k she wants to prove we’re from Mulholland. Or rather, I think she really wants to p-pr-prove we ain’t.”

“WHY?”

“And why Mulholland-d-d?” Bonnie asked. “Why not Circle Drive? That’s where she remembers us from.”

“Aye, but-t-t nothing bad happened at Circle Drive.”

Chica stared in open-mouthed disbelief and even Freddy looked skeptical, but Bonnie was the one who could talk, so it was Bonnie who said, “Um, she might-t-t not have known what was happening at night, but what about James Royce motherfucking-ing-ing Reardon? I mean, I know he d-d-didn’t actually do anything, but he’s the one they pinned-d-d it on. Isn’t five dead-d-d kids _bad_ enough?”

“Aye, but it’s the kind-d-d o’ bad she’s looking for, ain’t it? She found-d-d a book, she said,” Foxy reminded them. “With pictures. She didn’t say what was in ‘em, but if it were a bunch o’ dead bodies, she’d b-b-be taking it to the coppers, wouldn’t she? Not bringing us bleeding Babycakes and waving it in Chica’s lovely face. So if it weren’t dead b-b-bodies in them pictures, what did she see? What else was happening at Freddy’s that anyone would want to t-t-take pictures of and keep for his own pleasure?” 

“Are you t-t-talking about the party rooms?” Bonnie asked. “If that’s what-t-t she saw in those pictures, why wouldn’t she just-t-t ask you what was going on in them? I mean, you’ve g-g-got to be—”

Chica took her hand off his arm and gave him a swift smack instead.

“—in a few?” Foxy finished calmly. “Aye, I reckon I am. And that’s maybe why she d-d-don’t just ask me. Can’t imagine I looked-d-d too damn happy in any of them pics. Could b-b-be that’s cutting a bit too close to the b-b-bone for her, following what may or may not-t-t have happened to her on Friday. No, there’s safer ways o’ asking. Like this.” He put his good hand on the stack of papers Bonnie had carried in and gave them a push to fan them out. “First-t-t thing she done when she came back here t-t-today was take these down and look at ‘em. Why? What’s in ‘em?”

Freddy put Chica aside with a final pat and moved closer. He picked up a photo, frowned, picked up another. “CHILDREN.”

“No, mate. Not the p-p-people. The places.” Foxy tapped his hook on the picture in Freddy’s hand as Freddy looked at the others with new interest. “Circle Drive…Circle Drive…High Street…Circle Drive…I don’t recognize this’n. Must be Fredbear’s. Fifty-ty-ty years worth o’ pictures here, and not a one of them that so much as p-p-proves Mulholland existed. Maybe that be a g-g-good thing and maybe not, for the bleeding building surely stands. Makes for a better puzzle, eh? A nice d-d-deep, thorny puzzle to lose herself in while she looks for the answer. And that’s trouble, mateys, for she’s looking here, she’s looking at us, and she’ll k-k-keep on looking until she finds it.”

“WHY?” Freddy asked. “IF. SHE. WAS. HURT…HOW. EVER. SHE. WAS. HURT…WHAT. DOES. THAT. HAVE. TO. DO. WITH. US.”

“Not a blessed-d-d thing, mate. And that’s the hook, ain’t it? She g-g-goes out with a bloke on Friday and c-c-comes back on Sunday with bleeding _Babycakes_ , thinking she’s going to use that little d-d-devil to prove our lass Chica here is or ain’t the same as her what walked-d-d the halls at Mulholland. I ask ye, do that-t-t make any damn logical sense at all? What the hell is that-t-t about, eh? Chica, luv,” Foxy said, turning to her intently. “Ye’ve read-d-d all up on that head-shrinking chum. What’s the word I want-t-t?”

Chica shivered noisily, clutching at her beakless mouth as her cameras irised wide and small, wide and small. She said, “P-P-PARATAXIC TRANSFERENCE.”

“Knew there had-d-d to be a word for it,” said Foxy with a satisfied smirk. “And somehow, I just-t-t knew ye’d know it.”

“Well, I don’t,” said Bonnie. “What-t-t does…uh, shit-t-t, sorry,” he interrupted himself, aware that he’d come close to accidentally triggering Chica, but she just nodded and waved at him to continue. He gave himself a quiet moment to make sure he could get it all out in one go, without stuttering, and said, “Chica, what does parataxic transference mean?” 

Chica shuddered again and chirped, “WOW, THAT’S A BIG WORD! PARATAXIC TRANSERENCE IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL AVOIDANCE MECHANISM CHARACTERIZED BY AN OBSESSION WITH SOLVING OR—” Chica looked pointedly up at the ceiling. “—REPAIRING SOME OTHER PROBLEM AS A SYMBOLIC MEANS OF OVERCOMING TRAUMA WITHOUT EVER DIRECTLY ACKNOWLEDGING IT.” She clicked a few times, twitching, and said, “VOCABULARY POWER!”

“Sound like anyone we know?” Foxy asked dryly.

Freddy nodded again, now looking thoughtful.

“I don’t get-t-t it,” said Bonnie, since he seemed to be the only one. 

“The only thing Ana knows for sure is that bad-d-d things happened at Mulholland,” Foxy told him. “Maybe…similar in nature to what-t-t happened to her. So she figures if she c-c-can prove it didn’t-t-t happen to us, then it didn’t happen to her neither.”

Bonnie looked at Chica, then at Freddy, then back at Foxy. “That’s the stupidest-t-t thing I ever heard.”

“This from the man what-t-t used the word ‘wubby’ with a straight-t-t face.”

“Fuck you. My face isn’t flexible.”

“ENOUGH.”

Foxy conceded at once, hand up and ears back. “What it c-c-comes down to is, we all got our ways o’ coping, mate, and that be hers. It don’t make sense and it don’t-t-t have to. Me p-p-p—POINT O’ ME SWORD—point being, she ain’t looking for _him_ …but she is looking at us. So aye, we g-g-got to be careful, and especially ye,” Foxy added, pointing his hook at Chica. “Ye never were any g-g-good at lying, luv, but if’n she sees so much as a flicker in yer eye when she p-p-presents ye with that little pink son of a—SEA BISCUIT—then she’ll draw that line betwixt us and Mulholland. And then we are in t-t-trouble, aye, bad trouble, because once that line’s drawn, Ana will follow it wherever it leads.”

“AND. IT. WILL. LEAD. STRAIGHT. TO. HIM,” said Freddy. 

“One of ‘em, anyhow. Either one’ll lead to t’other. But what’s important-t-t to remember here is, she ain’t looking for bodies. Eh?” Foxy turned narrow eyes on Freddy, who tipped his head back with a broody grunt. “She d-d-don’t know she’s on a blood trail. And as long as we ain’t no older than the b—BILGERAT!—building, she’ll never look beyond-d-d it, mark me words.” 

Bonnie watched Freddy think that over, tense but hopeful.

Freddy noticed. He glanced at Bonnie, then sighed and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “I. HOPE. YOU’RE. RIGHT,” he told Foxy. “I’M. WILLING. TO. LET. HER. WORK. THIS. OUT. HER. WAY. BUT. IF. SHE. EVER. TELLS. ANY. OF. YOU. WHAT. REALLY. HAPPENED. ON. FRIDAY. I. NEED. TO. KNOW. AND. THAT’S AN ORDER.” He opened the door, paused, and looked back. “AND. BE. CAREFUL. WHAT. YOU. SAY. TO. HER. WE. ARE. RIGHT. ON. THE. EDGE. OF. WHAT. I. CAN. OVER. LOOK. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

Bonnie nodded, ears low.

“GOOD,” said Freddy and started out on another patrol, rubbing at his temples with both hands as he went. His voice floated back at them, echoing in the empty hall: “I’M. GETTING. A. HEAD. ACHE. HOW. DOES. THAT. EVEN. WORK.”

Chica left next, giving the duffel bag that hid Babycakes a backwards glance and one last shiver before heading for the dining room.

Alone together, Foxy and Bonnie just looked at each other for a while.

“What didn’t-t-t you tell him?” asked Bonnie.

“Insults and calumny, says I,” Foxy drawled, blatantly unsurprised. “I were ordered-d-d to tell the truth, weren’t I?”

“And I’m sure everything-ing-ing you said was true. What didn’t you say?”

“Close the door.”

Bonnie did.

“Nate weren’t the only egg in her minder-r-r—ARR!” Foxy said, shaking off the triggered word and snapping his jaw back into place when it slipped its setting. “She counted ‘em off for me on her fingers. Billy. Lisa. David. Nate. Erik. And all the other little eggs in Mike’s egg minder, she said.”

“Those are all really common names,” Bonnie said after a long, thoughtless span of time.

“Aye, they are. But there are a few faces what-t-t come in clearer than others, ain’t there?”

“Well, David’s probably her c-c-cousin, but who are the rest-t-t of them? You don’t really think Ana knows about…about Billy Blaylock or…” He edged toward the black, came back and said, “or anyone like that, d-d-do you?”

“No,” said Foxy at once, only to pause and amend himself almost immediately with, “I don’t know. Small t-t-town, ain’t it? Lots of kiddies too young to know B-B-Billy come here hoping to find-d-d—BURIED TREASURE—his ghost. But Ana don’t believe in ghosts, as she’s so fond-d-d of saying, and she’s never mentioned Billy before. More importantly, if the Erik-k-k she mentioned is—” Now Foxy’s pupils opened, until Bonnie could see the pinpoint lights shining silver out of their sockets. “— _him_ ,” he growled and closed his eyes, shuddering until he was calm. “Then it wouldn’t be _Mike’s_ egg minder, would-d-d it? Who’s Mike? Apart from a couple d-d-dozen kiddies I may have crossed swords with over the—ROLLING SEAS—years, the only ‘Mike’ leaps to me mind is that night-t-t guard chappie from Circle Drive. Smith.”

“Schmidt, I think.”

“Whoever. He were a nosy little blighter-r-r—ARR!—and I’m sure he c-c-could tell some tales, but that had to have b-b-been…hell, twenty years gone, at least. Our Ana would have been knee-high to a sea-horse. How would she even know him?”

“I think there was a Mike who worked-d-d here,” Bonnie said doubtfully. “In the k-k-kitchen. Maybe he t-t-told her something.”

“Ye think so?” Foxy asked pointedly.

“Not really.”

“Me neither. No. No, only thing what makes sense to me is that-t-t this Mike-chappie were the fellow what left the b-b-book for her to find, and all them other names—Billy and Nate and such—were the pictures inside it, pictures of folks who paid-d-d for a party. Mike’s egg-minder and all his little eggs.”

“She said Babycakes was the egg-minder.”

Foxy rolled his eyes. “She said it b-b-both ways. She were drunk and stoned-d-d and half-asleep! And she’s got-t-t a weird egg fixation. Me point is, I won’t have Freddy judging her on anything she said in that c-c-condition.”

Bonnie nodded, then forced his ears up a bit and put out his hand. “Thanks.”

Foxy looked at his hand and snorted, but offered up his hook for a shake. “I didn’t do it for you, mate.”

“Thanks just-t-t the same. I mean…I know Freddy’s only d-d-doing what he thinks is right, but…well, he’s d-d-dealt with a lot of problems by dumping them in the quarry. I’m not sure he’s even looking-ing-ing for other solutions anymore.”

“Like I says, Bon—” Foxy collected Ana’s duffel bag and awkwardly scooped up the stack of papers. “—we all g-g-got our ways o’ coping. Go easy on Fred. When ye t-t-talk about choosing sides, just remember-r-r—ARR! ME HEARTIES! Ye may b-b-be on Ana’s, but he’s on ours…and he’s the only one.”


	6. Chapter 6

# CHAPTER SIX

Waking up hungover was not the worst way to start a working day. Waking up rum-hungover on the floor of Freddy’s the day after waking up Fireball-hungover in Erik Metzger’s basement in bed with Plushtrap was considerably worse, but still not as bad as it could be. That honor went to waking up rum-hungover on the floor of Freddy’s, etc, and having to do it all on a summer day in Mammon, with all the heat and the stink that went with it. A few hours later, she would know all too well there was still further to fall, but at the time, she thought that was as bad as it got.

Nevertheless, she rolled her aching head out of bed when the animatronics tromped in at six to assume their places on stage. After rinsing out her mouth with a pot of coffee, she got to work. There were a lot of little things she could manage even in her subpar condition, but as soon as her head was on speaking terms with her eyes, hands and stomach, the real work could begin. There were three things at the top of today’s list: First, get up on the roof and see just what taking it down was going to mean, because that had to start tomorrow, ready or not. Second, as soon as the government building opened, she needed to call and see if there was any way to get the dump trailer changed out before Thursday, because if not, she needed to clear out the garage at home to store debris. And third, she had to rent a commercial hauler and make a run to Lowe’s for lumber, roofing materials, and hardware so it was all here and ready to go. 

The last task would be the most time-consuming and even it shouldn’t take her much further than noon. That left her a good eight to ten hours open for whatever she was up to doing. Hell, with a little luck all around, she might even be able to start pulling the roof down today.

And she was, as things turned out, although as Ana sat smoking on the loading dock that evening and watching the sun go down through the eye that would open, she found herself thinking that, while they may both get the job done, there are two kinds of luck.

But that was later. For now, the sun was just lifting off the horizon and Ana was full of headache and optimism.

By eleven o’clock, when the animatronics woke up and started singing, she’d done just about everything she could do without doing real work, so she dug her sunglasses out of her day pack, put her safety goggles over them, hauled the ladder out of the gym, and went outside to face the day. 

Ah, Mammon. The sun was shining like it had to justify its budget before the Celestial Luminary Committee and the wind was blowing like it had just noticed all the people crawling around on the Earth’s skin and was trying to sweep them off before anyone noticed. The combination of wind, heat, quarry and desert made it feel like she was being sandblasted in an oven that had previously been used to cook garbage.

Ana dragged the ladder with her around to the front of the building, which was the most sheltered from the wind, and leaned it up just to one side of the iconic Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria sign, the one with the giant top hat over the first F on one side and cartoony versions of all four animatronics crowded together over the ‘Pizzeria’ part. The heads had all broken off after all these years, but Chica at least was still waving, and her wooden arm helped hold the ladder in place no matter how hard the wind blew. Up she went, hand over hand, until she was pulling herself over the façade.

She paused there briefly, one foot still on the ladder, painfully straddling the weathered trim, to look at what she had gotten herself into. Typical tar-and-gravel deal. Flashing was gone, no surprise. Gutters and scuppers were full of sand. Serious bubbling and cracking, to the extent that this entire half of the building looked like it had been finished off with a layer of alligator hide, a particularly apt metaphor considering the pockets of dried algae that marked the places pools formed whenever it rained. The worst of these was there over the dining room, in a visible depression that had to be at least fifty feet across. And of course there were holes, although not as many as she feared she’d find, and none of them appeared to have eaten all the way through the mats yet. So she had her work cut out for her, but it wasn’t any worse than she’d anticipated.

Ana touched down cautiously, keeping a firm hold on the rotting façade until she was sure the roof could take her weight. It did, but she didn’t kid herself. This roof was a mine field. Any step could be the one that opened up under her. As soon as she’d inspected the venting systems and knew what to add to the shopping list at Lowe’s…

…hang on, what in the hell was that?

Over on the south side of the building, lying not quite flat and partially buried in drifts of windblown sand, Ana could see something she couldn’t recognize, which made it something that most definitely did not belong on the roof. Whatever it was, it was huge, roughly the size of the table she slept under, if the legs were cut off. Another sign perhaps? But no, one glance at the sign beside her told her there’d be a row of bent or broken struts to show where such a sign had been, even if it had blown over. Maybe the builders had left their surplus materials up here, covered over in black plastic and then forgotten.

“How badly do I want to know?” Ana asked herself, eying the distance between her and it.

Stupid question. She was going to have to deal with it sooner or later, whatever it was. Might as well find out now. The only real question was whether it was safer to walk across the roof to get to it or climb down, move the ladder directly into the worst of the wind with no secondary means of structural support and climb up closer to it.

Tough call.

Ana started walking. 

The wind pushed at her every step of the way, so much stronger up here than on the ground. It slapped her face, pulled at her hair and clothes, and scoured at her skin. She could only hunch over and wait it out, so that was what she did. When the wind failed to topple her over the edge, it threw a tantrum, shaking at the boards of the restaurant’s sign before sulking away. 

So frustrating. The dark wedge or whatever it was stayed fixed, unmoving even in the worst wind. If it was indeed something wrapped in plastic, that plastic had melted and fused with the stuff beneath. Plausible, but looking at it, Ana really didn’t think so. More and more, she thought she was looking at a structural element, something deliberately constructed, deliberately placed. Not part of the venting system, though. A skylight? Hard to tell if there was glass under that crust of reddish-grey grime, but it could be. However, that only raised more questions. Whatever she was looking at, it was over Pirate Cove, but Pirate Cove had no skylight, no windows of any kind.

Ana ventured closer, but the wind saw her moving and came howling back stronger than ever. This time, she leaned into it and kept going. Probably not the smartest thing to do, but if she waited for the weather to calm down, she’d be waiting forever. Fucking Mammon.

The closer she got and the better she was able to see it, the more baffled Ana became. A flat panel, about eight by four feet, but much thicker, maybe six inches. It was definitely glass she was looking at, black glass beneath a solid crust of grey mountain soil and red desert sand. It rested in a raised bed with rubbery panels all around like the skirt on a Cenobite’s Christmas tree. When Ana finally reached it and found the catch that allowed her to push this heavy curtain aside, she found it protected a mass of cables, coils and springs and supports from Mammon’s abrasive elements.

Ana was at a bad angle to shine a light on the situation, but even without one, she could see enough to know the panel was meant to move. Not much. Its supporting arm was fixed in place, but there was some staining to suggest it could elevate up to six inches at need and obviously, it could tilt on its axis like a see-saw. And suddenly, she knew what she was looking at.

A solar panel.

Not the sort of thing she’d seen up close very often, not even in southern California, and those few she had seen were nothing like this one. If the standard commercial solar panel was a minivan—clunky, utilitarian and not terribly efficient—than this was the Batmobile. Nolan’s Batmobile at that, able not only to deliver a punch, but to take one as well. After all these years exposed to the elements, the glass wasn’t even cracked. 

If she washed it off, it might actually still work. It couldn’t power much—it would take a fleet of Batmobiles and Wonder Woman’s invisible jet besides to generate enough juice to run a building the size of this one—but even if all it gave her was one electrical outlet, that was as good as a gift from God Himself on a job like this. 

“Useless without an invertor,” Ana reminded herself, and she hadn’t seen one. Probably salvaged off the back end of the building before the first year was out. She doubted she’d be able to find a compatible replacement on the open market, and without that essential piece of equipment, this panel was about as useful as a computer without a monitor. Worse than that, really, because it was also in the way. And unless by some miracle the section of roof they were situated on was sound, she was going to have to move it. And since it weighed a metric fuckton, and she had neither the time nor the equipment to muscle it safely off the roof, she was probably going to end up breaking it down and pitching it over the side.

God, it was like smashing a Faberge egg because you didn’t have room for it on the mantel.

Oh well. Maybe she could—

The wind gusted unexpectedly, actually pushing Ana over right on her ass before she was braced against it. She picked herself up, swearing at the wind, and turned her back on the solar panel, which was interesting and mysterious and most of all distracting. She needed to do what she came up here to do and get the hell off this roof before the ladder blew over.

Step by careful step, Ana made her way to the nearest ventilator. No cheap whirlybirds here, someone had paid top dollar for these babies, and then installed them in a real shitshow of a roof, which made about as much sense as hanging a stained-glass window on a pre-fab shed…or putting tungsten carbide security doors in a pizza parlor.

Ana found the information she needed on the boot of the ventilator, took a picture with her phone and—in what she would later consider a genuinely paranormal episode of precognition—unthinkingly tucked her phone into her boot instead of her pocket. Later, this would be hilarious. Her psychic self apparently thought she could handle all the things who’d ever tried to kill her—countless beatings, the lake her mother had driven her into, scores of bad scenes she’d walked into while working for Rider, that whole mess with Mason Kellar, not to mention fucking _Springtrap_ —but God forbid she lose her phone. She would keep the picture, that of the make and model information for a direct drive upblast roof ventilator, taken at 8:13 in the morning of June 29th, 2015, eventually printing it out and framing it. It hung on the wall for the rest of her life, in commemoration. For now, blissfully ignorant, she straightened up, took a swift count of the ventilators, then headed for the exhaust elements over by the kitchen, giving the dining room area as wide a berth as she could manage. She was almost done. The trick was not to get sloppy, not to rush, to be aware of the wind but not to fear it. 

As if it could hear her, the wind came back with a vengeance, flattening her clothes and howling in her ears, but beneath its monstrous voice, Ana still somehow heard the crack. She knew instantly what it was. She looked anyway, just in time to see that iconic sign— _FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZERIA, where Fantasy and Fun come to life!_ —first shake, then splinter and finally explode. Fragments of letters spilled in all directions, insensible as a bowl of alphabet soup. The surviving painted figures of the mascots blew apart, giving her a glimpse of Chica’s bib, Foxy’s eyepatch and Bonnie’s guitar, but it was Freddy’s giant hat, because of course it was, that flipped over and slammed into her.

Her world went black so suddenly, she thought it had killed her. Just struck her dead right there on the roof, and whatever consciousness was left to have that thought at all was just the formless residue of her soul, waiting in the dark for a light to open up and show her where to go next.

Then she hit the roof—arm, back, knee, cheek—tumbling and scraping over its gravely surface as the hat perpetually slapped her along, until it decided it had had enough and wedged itself underneath her. The wind got behind it and suddenly she was one hundred percent airborne, riding Freddy’s fucking hat like a goddamn flying carpet for one heart-stopping second or two or three, before it flipped her over and slammed her down into a big bowl of roof pudding.

Not onto.

Into.

She fell through before she even knew she’d hit it and the hat covered the hole she’d made so she fell in the dark through that spongy, stinking mass into a blocky, unyielding something. She hit it like a hammer; it sounded like a gong. But she only hit it with the back of her head and one shoulder. The rest of her kept falling, dragging the rest of her with it, flipping her over in a blind cartwheel to bang facefirst into another hollow blocky something before she’d finished fully registering the first impact.

It was the last clear sense she had of her fall, although she remained conscious, because Ana’s thoughts divided then into three distinct memory-paths, none of them real. 

In the first, she was again twelve years old, standing at the center of a ring of jeering faces as one of them told her she was so ugly, she must have fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. This was the first fight Ana had ever been in, and it had been the first because that was the most baffling and outrageous insult she could stand to take. If they’d made fun of her for being poor, for her ill-fitting clothes or the duct tape holding her split shoes together, that would have been fine. If they’d made fun of her for smelling, because she so often went to school directly from the closet, stinking of sweat and piss, even though she tried to only get it in the jar, that would have been fine too. But she knew she wasn’t ugly and it was the lie that finally broke her, the lie and the idea that she would never be beat up enough to satisfy these kids and the kids that would come after and the whole effing world, that they would also get to lie about her and laugh when they lied. No. Too much. So Ana punched. The kid, startled, punched back and all her friends piled on, but all of them together were no match for Ana’s mother, whose punches had been Ana’s teachers all these years. Ana took them without flinching and gave them back, beating at this screaming, crying tangle of children with her mother’s anger, her mother’s fists. She was the ugly tree, by God. She was every branch on the way down and when they had finished falling and lay all around her on the ground, they were the ugly ones, snotty and bloody and bruised and ugly.

That was the first memory-path. Beside it, no more real and no less vivid, she was nineteen and bogged down on some back road in a spring storm in Colorado, trying to push her car (the last car she would ever own; all the rest would be trucks) out of the mud and onto the pavement again while freezing water sluiced off the mountain around her ankles. Then came a surge of water, mud and rock, spinning the back end of the car around and shoving her right off the edge of the world and down the mountainside. It wasn’t very steep. She did not fall, but slid, now on her knees, now her belly, now her side. The water was all around, not deep, but frothy and foul, choking her as the mountain tumbled her away. She’d broken her leg and three ribs on that slide, but that was not the part she remembered now, only the tumbling, the suffocation, the stink.

In the third and last memory-path, Ana simply fell in the black and hit nothing. This was the Ana knocked dead on the roof by a flying top hat, the Ana who would fall forever because no light would ever come for her. She was in Mammon now, and all children of Mammon are forsaken.

These were Ana’s only thoughts and memories as she fell through the roof until she plopped down into the soft bed of what felt like cotton candy, if cotton candy was itchy instead of sticky and came with spiders and dead sparrows tangled up in it. She had a moment to think she’d landed, and then there was a tired ripping/cracking/crumbling sound and she was falling again, knocking her head one more time on a rafter before she broke through the rotted sheetrock and ceiling tiles, dropped all too briefly through blessedly empty space, and executed a flawless back-flop onto the padded stage in the dining room, narrowly missing Chica and startling the fuzzy hell out of Freddy. 

Silence. Not in the dining room—Ana’s open eyes could see the hole in the ceiling opening wider, deeper, all the way up to the brilliant blue sky, and that didn’t happen quietly—but in her head. There was nothing wrong with her ears, she was sure of it, but all she could hear at the moment was her own breath and it was huge, the only thing there was to hear in a world starved of sound. Inhale. Exhale.

At opposite ends of the stage, occupying the periphery of her oddly reduced frame of vision, she could see blobs of pale purple and sunshine yellow—Bonnie and Chica still performing—and although she was still not consciously hearing sounds, she somehow knew the song. _Froggy Went a’Courting._ It was one of the few songs they all sang together, and she’d always thought it sounded pretty good for a kid’s song, although Freddy’s voice had a tendency to drown out the others.

And here was Freddy now, bending over her, but looking up. His mouth was moving. On some level, she knew she could hear him, but beyond the hoarse rhythm of her breath and a distant ringing tone in the far back of her skull, she could not bring his words into focus. Probably telling her to get off the stage. Rule number whatever. What a jerk.

“Okay, okay,” she mumbled, sitting up. Wet heat poured over her face at once, stinging at her eyes and itching at her cheeks like tears. She wiped it away, frowning at the red streaks left on her hand. Pizza sauce? Impossible. The kitchen had been closed for years.

Somewhere beyond her focus, Bonnie was glitching out. Freddy let go of her shoulder—when had he grabbed it?—and went to him, pivoting to point at Chica, bellowing orders like a drill sergeant. Not panicking. Never panicking. Taking command. A bear in his element. Inspiring.

“I’m okay,” she said reassuringly, since at least some of his shouting seemed to be directed at her. She got up. It took several attempts, but she managed a little bit better with each successive try until she was all the way up on her feet. “I’m fine,” she said and walked off the edge of the stage.

Funny. She’d seen it. She’d even recognized the floor was an easy two feet further down, and still she’d stepped right out into thin air like she thought it was going to hold her up. It didn’t.

Ana pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, frowning at the floor, where chunks of debris skittered and slid over the tiles. “Do you see that?” she started to ask, but only got the first two words out before the other two were squeezed into a single bark by a huge brown arm cinching tight around her waist. She was spun. Her head kept on spinning after the rest of her was thrown down on the stage. Freddy started to climb up beside her, looked back, then grabbed her and yanked her to him, bending low over her, head down, eyes shut, standing still as the rest of the world shook and howled. 

Pressed to his chest, Ana could only breathe and stare, disconnected…until the ceiling around the air conditioning system disintegrated and dropped an industrial fan unit directly onto Freddy. He didn’t budge, but his back plate shattered, shards of brown plastic half-flocked in fibracene spinning out into the room. The fan didn’t come through entirely intact either, but the bulk of it slid away and crashed to the floor and suddenly, there was sound again. 

A little more than a year ago, when Ana was working at a machine shop in Oklahoma, a standard Midwestern storm had rather rapidly developed some green and grainy overtones and before Ana had known what was happening, her co-workers were running for the supervisor’s office. Ana, as the newest hire, had not yet made it onto anyone’s radar, so she initially went unnoticed and while she waited for the herd to thin, she happened to look out the foreroom window and see a churning cloud of air moving down the street. She didn’t see a funnel; if anything, it was wider where it touched the ground, grazing. It was a picky eater, sampling everything it came across, but spitting most of it out. Only when she saw that did she realize the noise she’d been hearing for some time now was not a train after all.

That sound was this sound: not a train and not a tornado, but the endless roar and crash of pure destruction. She wanted to scream and couldn’t, wanted to struggle and didn’t. The best she could manage was to twitch now and then, shivering in Freddy’s arms and breathing too loud inside her head, when she could breathe at all.

It ended, as all things end. A few more tiles fell, then some clumps of insulation, then one of the light fixtures, getting caught up on its own wiring and swinging into the wall instead of hitting the floor, then one more ceiling tile, and then it was over. The room was full of rancid grey dust, but the wind was still blowing strong through the brand new hole in the roof, and it would clear up pretty quick.

Freddy lifted his head slowly and looked around, the sound of his servos dwarfed by the greater whistling roar of the wind. He muttered to himself in that way he had, without words, patting at Ana’s back in distracted comfort as his gaze leapt from the ceiling to Chica to the floor to Bonnie to the ceiling again.

Ana looked too, and when Freddy finally released her to pick his way out into the middle of the devastation, she followed him, still staring. Not at the sky; she’d seen sky, even if this was a new place to find it. Not in disbelief at the fact that she was still alive; that would come later (and never to the degree it should). She stared, open-mouthed in the toxic dust, and if she thought anything at all in those first minutes, it was that she’d always thought of the basement whenever she heard the phrase ‘bowels of the building,’ but this building wore its bowels on its head.

The mysteriously oversized air ducts she had noted in the past were just the tip of the iceberg, and like all icebergs, the biggest part was the part you couldn’t see. The space between the relatively low ceiling of the dining room and the high roof wasn’t empty after all. Filling it were air ducts, entirely separate from those of the HVAC system, most of which presently lay around her on the floor. No, this was something else and had _always_ been something else. It was a maze, considerably more convoluted than the one down in Foxy’s Treasure Cave; a multi-story nightmare of twisting metal ducts, coiling over and under and around on itself, and as ominous as that was on its own merit, it was the senselessness that Ana found most overwhelming.

What was it? What was it supposed to do? Even if it was a part of…of Mike Schmidt’s Trap-nonsense, what was it? The vents in the Toybox had similar features, but she had understood their purpose, nauseating as it was. They had been made to spy on the unsuspecting guests. These…? There were only four vents Ana could think of, and of those, only the one in the gym had been anything like accessible, having been situated at the very top of the rock-climbing wall before Ana took it down. If these vents were meant for the animatronics to move around in, how the hell were they supposed to get in? The idea of Freddy chinning up to the vent in the party room or Kiddie Cove was ludicrous, and there was a desk in front of the one in the security room that would probably collapse if Freddy sneezed on it much less climbed on it.

It made no sense, so Ana stared, determined to keep taking it apart in her mind, piece by piece, until she found the thing that _made_ it make sense. She stared, oblivious to the blood trickling down her cheeks to drip from her chin, unaware that she was very slightly trembling, as if in the cold. She was aware of nothing, in fact, nothing but the bowels of the building looming between her and the sky, right up until Freddy reached out his paw and touched her.

She jumped, spun and punched him, folding over almost immediately with a hissing inhale to cradle her now-throbbing hand.

“ARE. YOU. ALL. RIGHT,” Freddy asked, adjusting his muzzle, which she’d knocked askew, but not off.

She nodded, still bent, still hissing.

“YOU. WEREN’T. ANSWERING. ME.”

She squinted at him as she flexed her fingers. Nothing appeared to be broken. She was fine. “Were you talking?”

He nodded and said something else that Ana couldn’t quite home in on. The dust was settling, frosting his fur. 

“That’s a good look for you,” said Ana seriously. “I like the grey around the muzzle. It’s distinguished.”

He nodded again, frowning, then put his hand on her shoulder, and even though she was looking right at him when he did it, she still startled and punched him again.

“I. THINK. YOU. NEED. TO. SIT. DOWN,” said Freddy as Ana stumbled back, shaking and cradling her hand. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I will. In a minute. I need to clean this up first.”

“AN-N-A. SIT. DOWN.”

“Uh huh. Yeah. In a minute. I have to…I can’t…” She bent, picked up a chunk of curved brown plastic and held it, looking up at the air ducts twisting overhead. She laughed, high and broken as tears. “How much of this is real?”

“OKAY,” said Freddy, taking her arm. After she punched him, he turned to the stage. “BONNIE. WAKE UP. TAKE. CARE. OF. HER,” he ordered as Bonnie shuddered and lurched to life, stumbling forward to sweep Ana into his arms before he’d even stopped twitching. “I. HAVE. TO. SEE. FOXY.”

“Bye,” said Ana since he was walking away and it seemed like the right thing to say. After a while, she noticed Bonnie was still hugging her. “Will you help me clean up? I wouldn’t ask, but some of it is heavy and I’ve still got to go to the store.”

“SURE,” said Bonnie. He sat down on the edge of the stage and pulled her onto his lap. “BUT FIRST, LET’S SING A SONG!”

“Oh. Yeah. Okay.”

So he sang, holding her, rocking her a little, like she was just a kid. Ana listened, although she would never be able to recall for certain just what song it had been. She was fine and she still had a lot to do, but she was just going to take a minute to get her head together before she got back at it. Three minutes. Five, tops. In the meantime, there was Bonnie. It’s a bad, bad world, he told her and it was. It’s a bad, bad world, but he was right there with her. He held her and he sang.

# * * *

But as the old joke went, apart from that, it was a pretty quiet day.

She lost a good portion of the morning to the not-thought of shock, but she didn’t think she passed out at any point. She could not recall just when it was that Bonnie set her aside and returned to his routine onstage, or even how many times he might have done it, but there was never a time when she wasn’t aware of him, so she must have been conscious all the while. Eventually, she was even able to understand that she might have a concussion and once she’d done that, she felt more or less obligated to take care of herself.

The next time Bonnie had to start a new show, she got up, took a bottle of water and went out to her truck. She took the first aid kit out from under the seat and angled the side-view mirror so she could see the face she was washing.

Well, she wouldn’t be winning any beauty pageants, but it could have been a lot worse. Good thing she’d hit her head first. It had made her go limp, which was the best way to get through a bad fall. Oh, she was colorful, all right. The bruises were still in that early pinkish purple stage, but by tomorrow, they’d fill in nicely. Already, she had a lump on her head so big that even her hair couldn’t hide it, as well as numerous ugly scrapes, a split lip and a puffy eye that would swell all the way shut by the end of the day, but her pupils were the same size and her scalp wasn’t hanging off anywhere, so she was fine.

Ana unbraided her hair, rinsed the blood out and finger-combed it forward to hide the worst of the damage, and called it good enough for now. 

When she went back inside, she collected another bottle of water from her dwindling supply and grimly drank it over the sink, taking small steady sips until she was sure it wasn’t going to come spewing back out of her. Since she was on her feet, she also figured she might as well start cleaning up while she waited to feel either better or worse.

On her return to the dining room, she noticed Freddy sitting on the edge of the stage while Bonnie and Chica did the backup vocals for the song he wasn’t singing. He wasn’t glitching out or frozen, just sitting there, slumped forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the ceiling where it lay in pieces on the floor. In that position and from this angle, the dark knobs of his metal spine were visible within the cavity of his broken back. Seeing that, Ana tried to remember if she’d seen Freddy walk since ‘catching’ the overhead fan and couldn’t. Of course, she couldn’t remember much of anything. For all she knew, Freddy had been sitting next to her for two hours or turning cartwheels right in front of her.

“You okay?” she asked.

He grunted, which probably meant he was fine, but it was hard to get a bead on him.

Ana cast around for a likely excuse to see him up and on his feet, and finally pointed at the fan. “Can you give me a…help me move that?”

Freddy glanced it, then looked at her through heavily-lidded eyes. “WHY?”

“What do you mean, why?” Ana indicated the debris with a vague wave. “I’ve got work to do, don’t I? And hey, silver lining! I got a great head-start on pulling down the roof.”

“THAT’S. NOT. FUNNY.”

“It is a little. Look, someone could get hurt tripping on this mess. You need Chica to sing the Safety First song or what?”

Freddy stared at her for a moment, but heaved himself up with no more trouble than usual. “WHERE?” he asked, picking it up, also without effort.

Ana started to point at the wall, then changed her mind. She didn’t have anywhere to put this junk yet, but that was the easiest of all the day’s troubles to overcome and when she got around to it, she really didn’t want to have to move that heavy bastard any further than she had to. “Loading dock too far for you?” she asked.

Freddy didn’t answer, but he did carry the thing outside for her. While he was up, he must have decided to go on one of his wanders through the building, because he was gone a long time. When Ana went looking for him, she found the fan in the bed of her truck and the loading dock door shut and jammed with the table leg again. 

Well, he was around somewhere and clearly, he was walking just fine, so Ana got to work. It didn’t take long to clear the dining room, although she wasn’t cleaning as much as pushing the mess to one side. And it really wasn’t that bad. The roof had not completely collapsed after all, it was just here in the dining room, and it wasn’t even the whole dining room. Her table was a bit dusty, but otherwise unscathed. Even Swampy had come through without a scratch, or at least, without any new scratches. And of course, she made sure to collect the pieces of Freddy’s back as she found them in the rubble, since fixing him up made a nice apology for all the punching she’d done, as well as a thank-you for not punching back. Maybe that would put him in a better mood.

At some point while Ana worked, Freddy reappeared. She never heard him come in, she just carried some light fixtures out to the truck, came back and found him sitting on the stage once more. “Everything okay?” she asked, wading back onto the battlefield for more casualties.

Grunt.

“It didn’t fall in anywhere else, did it?”

He shook his head.

“Good.” Ana picked up a few clumps of insulation, then a few more, and then went ahead and said it: “I’m sensing some hostility, big bear.”

“STOP. CALLING. ME. THAT.”

“Sorry. Freddy. Look, if you’re waiting for an apology, then I’m sorry you got banged up and that I interrupted the show or whatever.”

“OR. WHATEVER,” he echoed, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the floor.

“I can appreciate that you saved my life and all that. And if you’re upset because I got hurt, well, you know, shit happens, but the world does not stop turning just because I get some bumps and bruises. The Fourth is right around the corner and I have got to stay on schedule. This may not have been how I intended to get started, but this was essentially the plan all along.”

“WAS. IT.”

“I can’t put the new roof up until the old one’s gone, right?”

“THEN. I’M. GLAD. EVERY. THING. IS. GOING. SO. WELL. FOR. YOU.”

She looked at him.

He stared straight ahead.

“Okay,” she said, beginning to get a little annoyed herself. “You want to be pissed, be pissed. I don’t care.”

“THANK. YOU. FOR. YOUR. KIND. PERMISSION.”

“You want to let me fix your back or would you rather sit there and sulk?”

“I. CAN. DO. BOTH. CAN’T. I.”

Ana went to the quiet room for the materials she had left over after reconstructing Bonnie’s face. When she returned with her toolbox, Freddy got up with a sigh of resignation.

“I’m not ready for you yet,” she said.

He sat back down and resumed staring at nothing.

“Although it shouldn’t be too long,” she told him, laying everything out. “I might need some more shellac, but I can pick it at the hardware store when I go to town later. Your fur is really going to fuck up the glue, though, so I’d like to take it off. What do you say?”

“YOU’RE. NOT. GOING. ANY. WHERE. TONIGHT.”

Ana looked up from the jigsaw puzzle that was his back, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth and a frown pinching at her eyebrows. “Um, what else do you say? Because I was going for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ thing.”

He just looked at her.

“Yeah, I am. I’m going to the store. There’s stuff I need. Water. Gas for the generator. Maybe some dinner. What is the big deal?” 

“YOU’RE. HURT.” His eyelids took on that old familiar slant. “ISN’T. THAT. DEAL. BIG. ENOUGH.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, I’m fine.”

“YOU’RE. FINE,” echoed Freddy. He was not agreeing. “HAVE. YOU. SEEN. YOURSELF. YOU. CAN’T. EVEN. OPEN. BOTH. EYES.”

“It looks worse than it is, I swear,” said Ana, putting on her thick rubber gloves and opening the solvent. “Head wounds just bleed a lot. If I was seriously hurt, I’d know it by all the death I’d be experiencing.”

He didn’t answer, although his eyelids took on a steeper angle.

“Don’t get me wrong, I fully realize how bad that could have gone, but it didn’t and I’m not going to get hung up on a bunch of could-haves. So…about your back?”

Grunt.

“Look, I’m sorry to keep pestering you, but I really need an answer. Once I do this,” she said, pointing at the solvent, “I can’t undo it. It’s going to look silly and I know how you feel about that, so I need to hear you say you understand what I’m saying and it’s okay.”

Freddy rubbed a hand over his muzzle, muttering unintelligibly into his palm. He took off his hat, picked off a few specks of grit and put it back on. “I. UNDERSTAND. WHAT. YOU’RE. SAYING.”

She waited and finally said, “It’s not okay, is it?”

Freddy shook his head, but said, “THERE. ARE. WORSE. THINGS. THAN. LOOKING. SILLY.” He gestured toward her without looking at her. “DO. WHAT. YOU. HAVE. TO. DO.”

Ana dipped her gloved fingers in the solvent and rubbed it on the largest piece of plastic, trying to pretend the moment was not awkward. “If you want, I could strip the flocking off all of you.”

“NO.”

“It wouldn’t take that long, and frankly, you’d probably look better even without fur as long as it was all over. No offense, but you look kind of scruffy.”

His eyes shifted to her, hard. “LOOK. WHO. IS. TALKING.”

“Hey, this is not a story about me. Besides,” she added lightly, tossing a grin at the stage, “Bonnie still loves me, no matter how banged up I get.” 

“WELL. THAT’S. ALL. THAT. MATTERS. ISN’T. IT.”

Ana started the de-flocking process. It went fast, as it had with Bonnie’s face, the fibracene melting away as soon as the solvent touched it. Even the thickest patches of fur were reduced to gummy clumps of brown glop in seconds. It was tedious work, but not difficult. The worst part was Freddy’s silence.

While the pieces of his back dried, she got the push-broom and made good use of her time. Freddy lifted his feet for her when she swept in front of him; otherwise, he did not move. When she was done, she returned to Freddy’s broken back and started piecing it together, using aluminum tape for added support. This was the only real tricky part of the job, but she didn’t have moving parts to worry about this time and her attention had a way of wandering.

“Can I ask you something?” she said at last.

Freddy grunted.

“What is that?”

Freddy did not immediately answer, but he must have realized that silence was more damning than anything he could say, so he said, “THE. SKY.”

“I mean that,” she said, pointing at the knotted maze of air ducts.

He didn’t look up, just said, “I DON’T KNOW.”

“It’s not part of the HVAC system. It’s not part of anything. I’ve been putting buildings up and taking them down over half my life and I’ve never seen anything remotely like that, so what is it?”

“I DON’T KNOW.

“Why is it so big?”

“I DON’T KNOW.”

“What’s it made out of?”

“I DON’T KNOW.”

“It looks like the same stuff the support columns are made of. What is that? Is that tungsten carbide?”

“I DON’T KNOW,” said Freddy, but he squinted up at the ducts. “MAYBE.”

“What could you possibly be moving that needs tungsten carbide ducts to carry it? And why would you be moving it through that…that crazy-straw maze?”

“I’M. NOT. MOVING. ANYTHING.”

“I didn’t mean you personally. I meant…” She wasn’t sure what she meant, though, so she switched tracks. “I want to take it down.”

Freddy just looked at her, his expression unchanged.

“Can I take it down?”

“WHY. ARE. YOU. ASKING. ME.”

“It’s your name on the building, isn’t it?”

Freddy grunted and glanced toward the lobby. “NOT. ANY. MORE.”

“Oh, stop pouting. So your stupid sign fell apart. So what? How many hundreds of times have I had to listen to you tell some kid it’s not what’s on the outside, but the inside that matters?” 

“THE. INSIDE.” He looked at her as the tinkling notes of the Toreador March began to play somewhere inside him, then suddenly got up, went to the side of the stage and punched the wall. He grabbed a handful of wall-guts and pulled them out, flinging them across the floor between them—moldy insulation, sheetrock and tiles, dead mice and shriveled spiders. “THIS. INSIDE,” he asked, pivoting around to glare at her. “OR. THIS. ONE.” He yanked his arm casing open, dug his fingers into his magic act compartment and hurled wads of padding, stained scarves, playing cards and arcade tokens down around his feet. “HOW. IS. THIS. BETTER.” he demanded, all happy tone and furious eyes. “DON’T. TELL. ME. WHAT. MATTERS. AN-N-A. YOU. HAVE. NO. IDEA. WHAT. IS. ON. THE. INSIDE. HERE.”

Slapping his arm shut, Freddy returned to his place in the middle of the stage and sat again. The music he played began to slow and lower in volume until he finally shut it off. Behind him, Bonnie and Chica concluded the knock-knock portion of their act and launched into a medley of songs; Bonnie was off-rhythm, stuttering.

“Go on,” said Ana.

Freddy grunted a wordless warning.

“No, I mean it,” she said. “Get it all out. Tell me this is my fault.”

He glanced at her with a perfect lack of expression, but looked away and grumbled, “IT’S. NOT. YOUR. FALL.”

“Sure it is. The roof was fine before I showed up, right? I made this whole mess happen. Say it. I know you’re thinking it. Just say it. You’ll feel better. Come on. You think I fell through the fucking roof on purpose?”

“THAT. WOULD. BE. GIVING. YOU. FAR. TOO. MUCH. CREDIT CARDS NOT ACCEPTED-D-D—” He shut his speaker up with a slap to the throat. “I. DON’T. THINK. YOU. WERE. THINKING. AT. ALL.”

“It was a gust of wind and a rotted roof! I was not being stupid up there!”

“ _OF. COURSE. YOU. WERE,_ ” he bellowed, suddenly blasting the Toreador March at a volume hard enough that it made his speaker, her ears and the whole world hum. “YOU. DON’T. CARE. IF. YOU. GET. HURT. YOU. DON’T. CARE. IF. YOU. GET. K-K-KILLED. AND. IF. YOU. DON’T. EVEN. CARE. ABOUT. YOU. WHY. THE. HELLO! SHOULD. YOU. CARE. ABOUT. US.” He leapt up again, stomping toward her and slamming one fist on his chest hard enough to crack it, roaring, “THIS. IS. MY. HOME. BEAVER DAM. YOU. THIS. IS. MY. FAMILY. I. AM. TRUSTING. YOU. WITH. OUR. LIVES. AND. YOU. ACT. LIKE. IT’S. ONE. BIG. JOKE.”

Heat fanned up her cheeks. Ana yanked off her gloves and slapped them down. “A month ago, you didn’t even want to believe there was a problem here, so let’s talk about who’s playing with people’s lives.”

He backed up a step, staring at her, his entire body heaving with the force of the air in his cooling system.

“You want to get mad at me, get mad at me, but don’t expect me to run screaming into the goddamn desert just because I took a fall. I don’t get scared, bear. I get up and get back to work.”

Freddy huffed out a ‘breath’ through his joints, but after another long minute staring into space, he looked back at her. “I’M. NOT. MAD. AT. YOU.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“MY. HOUSE. OF. CARDS. FELL. DOWN,” he said. “YES. I. KNEW. IT. WAS. GOING. TO.” _Click click click._ “HAPPY. AND. NO. IT’S. NOT. YOUR.” _Click click._ “FALL. BUT. THIS. IS. STILL. MY. HOME. IT’S. ALL. I. HAVE. NOW. AND. I. CANT. DO. ANYTHING. BUT. WATCH. IT. FALL. DOWN.”

“And watch me shrug it off?” she guessed. “I’m taking this seriously, Freddy. I just don’t see the point in freaking out over something that’s already over. It is what it is. I can’t panic the roof back into place.”

“I. KNOW,” he said and sighed, returning to the stage. He sat, elbows on knees and ears low on their pins, looking hopelessly at nothing. 

“I’ll fix it,” she said. “You know I will.”

He shook his head, letting his gaze wander up and around and finally down at the floor. “I. KNOW,” he said, followed by a long pause without clicking before he finished, “AND. THAT. SCARES. ME. TOO.”

Ana nodded, thinking first of Mike Schmidt, who’d wanted her to believe this was the monster around whom she would never be safe, and then of the unseen programmer who may or may not have been Viktor Metzger, another monster, whose groundbreaking adaptive program had become so corrupted by neglect over the years that his animatronic could not only adopt the feeling of fear but also be embarrassed to admit it. But as these thoughts washed out, she was left with the picture of Freddy slumped on the edge of the stage in the ruins of the only home he had ever known, and right or wrong, she felt for him.

“It’ll be okay, Freddy,” she told him. “Sometimes the worst endings really are the best beginnings.”

He rubbed his muzzle, grumbling into his palm, then said, “AN-N-A. IT’S. BAD. ENOUGH. THAT. I. HAVE. TO. SAY. THAT. STUFF. I. DON’T. NEED. TO. LISTEN. TO. IT. TOO.”

“No, I actually mean that. True story…and I was just thinking about this…but last year, I was in a tornado. Well, not in it,” she amended as Freddy looked at her, “but across the street from it, and believe me, that was plenty close enough. Anyway, the tornado started pretty much at one end of town and went all the way through to the other, but it was a small town, so that’s still not saying much. A couple people got hurt, but no one got killed, and while there was a lot of damage, only a few places got absolutely wrecked. One of them was the trailer park where I was staying. Naturally, right? And even that was weird, because at least half the trailers were just fine and most of the others just got pushed over, but mine was one of those that just…disintegrated. No other word for it. I think I saw one of my blankets stuck on a tree a few miles out of town, but everything else was gone. And of all the businesses in town, the machine shop where I was working was one of only, like, six that closed up for good. The tornado didn’t hit it,” she added since Freddy had frowned. “But the thing is, the parking lot at the shop was super small, so just the boss and his buds used it. The rest of us had to park in the empty lot across the street and when the tornado strolled on by, it picked up a truck and hurled it into the second floor, which was kind of run down and unsafe, so no one used it, but which was also not structurally prepared to have a truck plow through it, so the second floor kind of fell onto the first floor. He was insured, but not enough to clean everything up, rebuild and reopen, so he took the money and retired. Whatever, the funny part of this story is that of the six vehicles parked in that empty lot, five of them went flying. I was there. I watched it happen. One car went into a tree, one went scraping off down the street another quarter mile, two went into the empty building behind the lot and the truck went, like I say, into the floor above me, but not my truck. My truck, parked smack-damn in the middle of the other five vehicles, my truck was just fine.”

Freddy’s head cocked. “YOU. WERE. IN. THE. BUILDING. WHEN. IT. FELL. DOWN.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the point. The point is, if any one of those three things were different, my whole life would be changed. If I still had a place to live, I could have just found another job. God knows there would have been plenty of clean-up work to go around. If I still had the job, I could have camped in my truck long enough to find another place to live. And if I’d lost my truck on top of everything else, I couldn’t have gone anywhere. But I lost my trailer, I lost my job and I had my truck, so I climbed in and went back to Rider. And he put me to work and helped me on the rental that started the paper trail that allowed the debt guys in Salt Lake to finally track me down, so here I am. See how it works? It’s not like dominos, falling down one by one by one. I could deal with that. Anyone could. It had to be the house of cards, falling down all together, all at once. That’s life and it sucks, but we can’t build it back up until it all comes down.”

Freddy had stared at her without expression throughout this speech and he continued to do so for a little while, but then, slowly, he nodded.

“If you can stand one more drop of happy horseshit out of me, someone said something once…I don’t remember who, but…I’ve always remembered the words and that’s saying something for me, because my memory is for shit, but sometimes, when you’ve got nothing else, the right words make all the difference, you know?”

Freddy studied her as the wind scattered elements of his magic act to the four corners of the ruined room. “LET’S HEAR IT,” he said at last.

“Everything will be okay in the end.”

One of Freddy’s eyebrows scraped upwards. “THAT’S IT?”

“And if it’s not okay,” said Ana softly, “it’s not the end.”

“YOU. BELIEVE. THAT,” Freddy said, his choppy way of speaking making it unclear whether that was a statement or a question.

“That doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen and perseverance or prayer or whatever you believe in, that doesn’t always get you through it. People die every day in horrible, horrible ways, but after that…” Ana shrugged. “Regardless of what you believe about, you know, heaven and hell or whatever, I still think the dying is the worst part and it doesn’t last. So yeah, I have to believe everyone’s okay in the end.”

He looked at her for a while longer, then shook his head. “I’LL. HAVE. TO. THINK. ABOUT. THAT,” he said, heaving himself onto his feet. “IN. THE. MEAN. TIME. ARE YOU READY FOR FREDDY?”

“Yeah, I’m good to go,” said Ana, taking out her precision drill and a handful of mounting brackets. “Come on over, big bear.”

“I. KEEP. TELLING. YOU. NOT. TO. CALL. ME. THAT.”

“Sorry, I get flippant when I’m nervous.”

“DO. I. STILL. MAKE. YOU. NERVOUS,” he asked, lurching to a stop in front of her. 

“Oh please. Like you’re _not_ trying. I want you to stand right here.” She spread her thighs and pointed at the floor between them. “Face the stage and find your happy place. And suspend Rule Number Six for a bit,” she warned. “I’ll try not to touch you any more than I absolutely have to if you’ll try not to backhand me into orbit when I do, deal?”

He grunted in the affirmative and turned around, exposing the dark metal knobs of his spine, the curved cage of his ribs, the dull blade of one scapula. Shreds of padding hung like zombie meat from his sides and shoulders, flapping with each wheeze from his cooling fan. There was a surprising amount of empty space in there, much more than Bonnie had, although nothing appeared to be missing. In the shadowed cavity of his chest, she could just make out the dimmest suggestion of movement as all his mechanical organs worked together…and something else. Something that shouldn’t be there.

Ana reached in through his bones, under his battery case and pushed the rubbery sack that was his empty stomach aside to let the light shine on a small trove of odd treasures he had buried inside him. There, the hollow of his pelvis and a little loose padding made a lopsided bowl and either he or the world’s cleanest packrat had filled it with a motley assortment of small toys and cheap plastic jewelry. Tucked away with it, folded into a flat square and secured with a rainbow barrette, was a familiar sheet of paper.

She took it out, but it made a crackling sound as she unclipped and unfolded it, and Freddy heard. His head swiveled around like an owl’s, then he pivoted at the waist and snatched the paper out of her hand before she caught more than a glimpse of the picture colored in crayons on the protected side.

“THAT’S. MINE,” he said, opening his abdomen and putting it away again. “DON’T. TOUCH. IT.”

“Sorry. I just…thought it looked like something I left here.”

“IT’S. MINE,” Freddy said again.

“Okay, okay. It’s yours,” said Ana, because even if it was the same poster she’d taken off the wall down in her aunt’s secret basement playroom, she really didn’t want it back. “Turn around.”

He turned his torso, but left his head backwards on his body, glaring at her.

Pretending not to notice, Ana found a good anchoring place on what was left of his back casing and mounted the first rod. From there, she built outward, bridging the gap and anchoring the resulting framework on his other side. It was a bigger hole than Bonnie’s broken face, but it was just one piece, fairly flat and without moving parts to contend with, and it all came together smoothly.

Since the build wasn’t requiring much of her, Ana figured she might as well kill two tedious birds with one chunk of her time. As soon as she was done with the solder and had the temporary use of both hands, she brought out her phone, found the sanitation services number in her contact list, and put a call through.

“Please hold,” said the man’s voice immediately upon picking up, and then Ana was listening to a tinny flute and distorted guitar fumbling together like two drunks in an alley trying to decide whether to fight or fuck. 

“Typical,” said Ana with a sigh, putting the phone on speaker and setting it beside her. She picked up the reassembled chunk of plastic that was Freddy’s back and fit it into the jagged hole where it belonged. “Can you hold this for a sec?”

Freddy, his head still on backwards, now brought his arms around to an angle that made Ana’s own shoulders ache in sympathy and held the piece in place. 

“Okay, now turn around and brace yourself, because we’re about to get snuggly.”

Freddy’s body turned while his head remained still, coming back into natural alignment in the most unnatural way possible. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” he asked, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Ana scooted right up close and wrapped her legs around his hips. She couldn’t cross her ankles behind him, but she got as close to it as she could, thumping her heels down close to his hands and cinching her muscles taut. In this position, she could not help but feel his suppressed shivers, and it was only going to get worse. 

“THIS. IS. NOT. FUNNY,” said Freddy, glaring.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” she replied. “That’s my man over there, looking right at us. You think I’d be doing this to another guy in front of him if it wasn’t absolutely necessary? Let alone to you, of all people, because let’s face it, you are the last guy on the entire planet I’d want to have in a leglock and that includes giant mutant hissing cockroaches. No offense.”

“NONE. TAKEN.” 

“But you need a screw…okay, bad choice of words, but you know what I mean. I need to anchor the broken part of you to the stable part of you from the inside, and I’m going to need both hands to do it, so I’m just trying to hold you together, because in a second, you won’t be able to help me do that.”

“YOU. WANT. TO. OPEN. ME.”

“I need to anchor this on the inside,” she said again, lining up screws, mounting brackets, dremel and drill beside her on the table. “So yeah, I need to get in there to do it and going through your chest is the only way to get the angle I need. You going to let me?”

He thought about it, shivering now and then. 

“YES.”

“Yes?”

“YES,” he said again, staring straight ahead at the wall behind her. “BUT. BE. CAREFUL. I. CAN. BE. DANGEROUS. WHEN. I’M. REBOOTING. CLOSE. MY. CHEST. AND. GET. AWAY. FROM. ME. UNTIL. MY. EYES. ARE. FULLY. OPEN.”

“Got it,” said Ana. She found her penlight, switched it on and stuck it between her sore lips like a cigar, talking around it like a gangster. “Ready?”

He nodded once, stiffly.

She leaned back and opened his chest, interrupting one more violent shiver that ended when he sagged forward, dead weight hanging off his mechanical bones. His fan kept turning and his battery kept…doing whatever it was doing in there, but the lights of his eyes went out and the lids clicked shut. His arms did not drop, but they relaxed and the piece he was holding would have fallen through his slack fingers if Ana hadn’t also been holding it. Freddy was gone and in his place was just an animatronic bear.

She worked quickly, wedging herself into him wherever there was room and trying not to disturb his little cache of treasures. So naturally, she had only just mounted the first bracket when the tinny music cut off and she heard an even tinnier voice say, “Hello? Mammon Government Services, how can I direct your call?”

“Oh goddamn it, not now!” Ana snarled around her penlight.

“What? Hello? Is anyone there?”

Ana shrugged out of Freddy’s chest, spat out her penlight and snarled, “Garbage department! I’ve got a—”

“Please hold.”

Music.

“Great,” muttered Ana, although she was in fact relieved not to be dealing with the phone quite yet. She finished securing Freddy’s back piece, relaxed her now-aching thighs and climbed down off the table, standing to one side and tensed to run as she shut his chest.

Freddy’s systems surged to life with a whine and a wheeze. He heaved in place, arms coming forward and head tipping back. One hand struck the toolbox; he did not seem to notice, even as he jerked and slapped it away, sending it spinning across the table and all the way into the wall next to the tray return window, fifteen easy feet away. “CLOCK DISCREPENCY DETECTED,” he said as tools, loose screws and spare steel rods jangled noisily over the floor. “CORRECTING. CORRECTED.”

His eyes opened. They were black, empty but for tiny pinpoints of silver light reflected off the backs of his cameras, deep inside his skull.

Ana did not move.

Freddy blinked, and now his eyes were just his eyes, as brilliantly blue as her own. He looked at her, then twisted around to look at his back. “IS. IT. OVER.”

“Almost,” said Ana, still not moving. “You’ve got some cracks I wanted to patch up, if you’re okay with that.”

“I. SUPPOSE. SO.” Freddy touched one of the wider cracks, then turned his head the right way around and noticed her toolbox, freshly dented, and the brand-new hole it had left in the wall on impact. He frowned.

“Missed me by a mile,” Ana assured him, but gave him a wide berth as she picked up the tub of polymer paste and donned her gloves.

The hold-music cut off again as she was dipping her fingers into the paste. Another man’s voice spoke up, annoyingly cheerful, “Hello? Mammon Sanitation and Public Works Department! Hello-hello?”

“Yeah, hi,” said Ana, filling the first of many cracks and smoothing it down. “My name is Ana Stark and I live up on Old Quarry Road at…you know what? There’s only one house on that road and you probably know who I am.”

“Small town,” the voice agreed.

“Okay, well I’ve got one of your dump trailers that needs to be exchanged—”

“Again? Well, all right,” he said in a voice that suggested he was doing her one hell of a favor, possibly for the last time, and not the job he was paid to do. “I’ll put the order in today and you’ll get your empty next Thursday after pick-up service runs.”

“I was hoping I could…wait a minute, _next_ Thursday?” Ana echoed. “What, like, next _week_?”

“Fraid so. Why? What’s your hurry?”

“I’ve got a lot of construction going on. It’s a messy job. Why, what’s _your_ problem?”

“We’ve only got the two trailers in the size you’re wanting and the other one’s going to be down at the fairgrounds this weekend for the Fourth.”

“Okay, well I guess that’s a thing. Can I get a couple of smaller ones then?”

“Nope. Smaller ones will be out at Jewel Lake and Primrose Park—”

“—for the Fourth,” Ana said along with him, shoving polymer paste into Freddy’s cracks with a touch more force than was strictly necessary. “Okay, well can you come get the one I’ve got, empty it now and bring it back today or tomorrow?”

“Nope.”

“What do you mean, nope? Why not?”

“I can’t process a work order like that in that kind of time.”

“What process?” Ana asked impatiently. “You poke a couple keys, email it to your person in charge of approval, I get billed, it’s over in less than a minute. Hell, you could physically walk down the hall and get someone to physically sign a piece of paper in less than a minute. What is the hold-up here?”

“Ma’am,” said the voice, no longer quite as cheerful, “it takes at least two business days to process an order like that, and that’s not taking the holidays into consideration. This is a small town, like I say, and every single resource we got has to be accounted for at all times. And I’ll tell you something else, since you didn’t ask, if anyone here had thought you’d still have that trailer out at your place after all this time, it wouldn’t have been rented to you in the first place. Sorry for your inconvenience and all that with your little construction mess, but we are down one of only two full-size trailers during the third-biggest public festival in this town and you ought to consider yourself darned lucky, pardon my French, that we aren’t revoking your rental agreement and driving up there right now to collect it.”

“Okay, I am done with this shit,” Ana interrupted, peeling off her gloves and slapping them down on the table.

“Ma’am, I will end this call right now if you don’t calm down.”

“I’m totally calm. Hang on. Don’t move,” she added to Freddy as she wriggled out from behind him and ducked under the table. “I’ll be right back with you in two shakes. I just need to get my wallet. You still there?”

“YES,” said Freddy.

“Yes,” said the voice on the phone at nearly the same moment, followed at once by a sharp laugh and a, “Whoa, we got some major interference there. Hello? Hello-hello?”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m back.” Ana emerged from beneath the table and thumped her shoebox down, flipping off the lid to expose her liquid assets. She counted out ten twenty-dollar bills and five hundred-dollar bills and tapped them into alignment. “Okay! So here’s what’s going to happen. You can process that order whenever you want and bill me in the usual manner, but as soon as you hang up this phone, you are going to call the guy who delivers the dump trailers and tell him—wait, there’s two of them, isn’t there?” she muttered, and counted out another ten twenties. “Okay, so, tell _them_ to come get my trailer, empty it out and bring it back to me, tonight.”

“Ma’am,” the voice began, sighing.

“I expect to see those men hauling my trailer away within the hour. When they come back with it empty, I will give them two hundred dollars each, cash in hand. Then I will drive to your house and hand you five hundred dollars for your trouble in arranging it. How does that sound?”

“Are you serious?” the voice asked after a short silence.

Ana put the stack of bills next to the phone and ran her thumb along the edge to make that fuck-you-I’m-money sound. “Have we got a deal?”

“Um…I don’t know. Is this legal?”

“People tip their garbagemen on Christmas, right? How is this different?”

“I…yeah,” the voice said with hushed conviction. “Deal. But don’t come to my house. And don’t come here.”

“Fine,” said Ana through gritted teeth. She started to rake a hand through her hair, but hit the knot on her temple. Pain was clarifying. She thought and said, “You work tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but don’t come here, I said!”

“I heard you the first time. You eat at Gallifrey’s, right?”

“Sure. Everyone does.”

“Yep and so do I. So tomorrow morning, I’ll go to Gallifrey’s and buy a newspaper. I’ll put the money in the paper and you come by the table after a bit and ask if I’m done with it. I hand it to you, you take it with you and nobody sees anything but a public servant who didn’t have exact change for the box, right?”

“Right,” said the voice, impressed and a little intimidated. “You, uh…You do this a lot?”

“Bribe garbagemen to get my dump trailer emptied? No,” said Ana drily. “But I pride myself on my moral flexibility. I saw that,” she added as Freddy rolled his eyes.

“Excuse me?” said the voice, sounding alarmed.

“Nothing. Talking to someone else. What time do you usually eat?”

After a little more hemming and hawing and gosh-I-don’t-know-if-I-shoulding, the arrangements were made.

“Thank God all my years of making drop-offs with drug dealers has not been wasted,” Ana snapped, shoving her phone in her pocket. “Okay, listen up. Are you listening?”

“YES,” said Freddy with a sidelong glance that told her he’d been listening the whole time.

“You’re going to need some time to dry and I’m afraid I can’t just sit here and watch it happen. I got to go home and wait for the garbage guys and then I’ve got to go pick up that hauler and load up at Lowe’s. Christ, the day’s half over and I’ve got a million things to do…but you. I want you to sit down and don’t move until I get back. Can you do that?”

Freddy went to the stage and sat, watching her collect her day pack and reacquaint herself with its contents. It wasn’t until she was walking through the plastic sheets out of the room that he suddenly said, “AN-N-A.”

She untangled herself from the plastic and poked her head back in. “Yeah?”

Half in shadow, half in sunlight, he glared at her without moving or speaking for several seconds, making her think whatever was coming was a big deal, but when he finally spoke, all he said was, “COME BACK SOON,” the same as he’d say to any guest on her way out the door.

“Sure,” said Ana, trying not to fidget. “Anything else?”

There was, clearly, but he wasn’t in any hurry to say it, so Ana turned around again.

“YOU’RE. NOT. A. BAD. PERSON. YOU. KNOW,” he said unexpectedly and frowned when she was startled into laughter.

“Not all the time,” she agreed, grinning. “But hey, who is? See you in a bit.”

“DRIVE. SAFELY,” Freddy grumbled and let her go.


	7. Chapter 7

# CHAPTER SEVEN

Later that night, with two Vicodin in her bloodstream to make her extra-introspective, Ana sat on the cracked tiles beside her ‘bedroom’ in the dining room and contemplated the ductwork by the best light possible—moonlight reflected off a beer bottle made shiny by icewater, with chips of actual ice still clinging to the label and trickling like sweat down the long, sexy neck. Mmm, mysterious ductwork.

The Vicodin kept her feeling pretty good right now, but even in its soothing embrace, she looked up at those ducts through a very dark lens. She did not like it. It made her curious and curiosity had always come with a sense of adventure for Ana, but not this time. Like the wiring-that-wasn’t, it was so far outside her considerable range of experience that she could feel nothing when looking at it that was not tinged with apprehension. It was too big to be a mistake. It served a purpose, but she could not look at it and see that purpose, not with her physical eyes and not with that ‘other-vision’ that had always served her so flawlessly. So it was a mystery, but she didn’t want to solve it; she wanted to get rid of it. 

Unfortunately, she couldn’t do that until she knew two things: what it was supporting and what was supporting it. To that end, following her shady yet successful acquisition of an empty dump trailer, Ana had continued pulling down the roof. The next eight hours passed in a sweaty blur of demolition and cleaning with lots of trips up and down the ladder in-between, but as the sun set, she’d only managed to open up the top of the dining room and the gym. All things considered, that was decent progress for one person to make, but she had only managed to expose enough of the ductwork to know it went a whole lot deeper. 

She’d been tempted to keep at it even after dark, but then—surprise, surprise—a couple cars came roaring down the road on the way to the quarry to blow shit up. She couldn’t work in the dark and couldn’t risk letting her headlamp be seen, so she guessed she was done. And apart from leaving her to stare in rankled dissatisfaction up at the intact and still largely concealed ductwork, that also left her the entire rest of the roof to take down tomorrow if she was going to stay on track. Ana was good at math; it had taken eight hours to demolish perhaps twenty percent of the total roof area. In addition to the remaining eighty percent, she had the new beams to lay, and the new ventilation materials in strategically-placed stacks around the building, all of which had to be installed by tomorrow night at the latest so she was ready for the weekend, and she still didn’t know what the hell to do about the lighting situation. Before she’d actually carved into the walls and discovered the electrical insanity hidden within, she’d purchased a number of light fixtures and now they were just cluttering up the shelves in the store room, with no way to install them and no power supply even if she could. She ought to just take them back, get her money refunded and put it to some other use. Her finances were not infinite; she was going to need every penny before the end. 

That thought only reminded her of the four hundred dollars she’d paid out to have her trailer emptied and the five hundred dollars she had yet to pay. 

Mammon. Just…fucking…Mammon.

But that was tomorrow. Tonight, all she had left to finish was this beer.

Footsteps in the East Hall. She knew without looking it was Bonnie, but she looked anyway, just to prove herself right. 

There he was—a blob of purple with glowing eyes staring in at her through the plastic sheets.

Ana didn’t have the energy either to call out or lift an arm for a wave, but she managed to get her foot off the ground and give the cooler an inviting nudge toward him.

His ears went up. He glanced behind him, then ducked through the plastic and limped over. “OH YEAH,” he said, gripping the wall for balance as he stiffly bent and fished himself out a beer. He bit the cap off, opened his mouth to let it drop, then tipped his head back and poured half the beer away. She could hear it fizzing and falling down his silicone throat, foaming up in the sac that was his stomach. His schtick, Mike had called that. Wasn’t supposed to do it, but did it anyway. Bad Boy Bonnie, who stole sips of beer. Had to remember to clean that out or she’d never get the smell out of him. 

Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow was soon enough. God knew, he already stank to high heaven. A little sour beer could only help.

“Thought you were going to play skee-ball?” she said, watching Bonnie mimic a sigh of satisfaction with a beverage he couldn’t taste.

“Yeah, well, Ch-Ch—CHICA THE LITTLE CHICKEN!—kicked my ass enough for one night. Foxy’s in—PIRATE COVE—in there with her now.”

“Ah.”

“Don’t ‘ah’ me,” he said with a mock-glower and an accompanying grin. “I d-d-didn’t walk out because he walked in, I escaped by the sk-sk-skin of my bunny teeth because she got another victim.”

“Well, that’s different.” Ana wiggled herself over an inch, patting the floor next to her. “Have a seat, my man.”

“Don’t mind-d-d if I do.” Handing her his beer, Bonnie put his back up against the wall and leaned. His legs stiffened. He dropped with just a tremendous whump, his legs going straight out and padded ass hitting the tiles hard enough to break most of them. Whatever, they weren’t the only broken tiles in here. “No id-d-dea how I’m getting-ing up again,” he remarked, taking his bottle back and pouring its contents down his throat. 

“No problem. You can stay at my place tonight.”

He glanced aside at the table as she gave it an inviting pat. “I don’t think-k-k I’ll fit.”

“It’ll be tight, but I’m sure I can squeeze you in,” she said innocently.

His lower jaw dropped an inch or so to expose his bottom teeth. “You’re c-c-cute.”

“And you’re very handsome when you smile. Hit me.”

The instant the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them, but Bonnie merely leaned out and got her another beer. He passed it over and said, “You m-mind-d-d?” even as he reached for the cooler again.

“Help yourself, my man. Me Equis es su Equis.”

“Thanks. I know it-t-t’s a waste, but-t-t I love it.”

“Can you taste it?” she asked curiously.

“Nope.” He bit the cap off, this time picking it out from between his teeth and flicking it toward the stage. He drank. “You d-d-drink it for the t-t-taste?”

“I have to admit, I do not.” But she did drink it and proved it. Shouldn’t have opened a fresh bottle. She’d bagged her limit for the night and with an early morning ahead of her, the last thing she wanted to get was even a little bit tipsy. So she thought and, thinking it, drank. 

“How are you feeling-ing-ing?” Bonnie asked, reaching a hand toward—but not quite touching—her cheek.

“Fine,” she replied, leaning out of his easy reach. “Bruised, but fine. I’ll be hurting tomorrow, but you know how it is. It always hurts worse the second day. I’ll live. I just hope it doesn’t slow me down too much.”

“Sure d-d-didn’t slow you down today,” Bonnie commented, running his gaze over the colossal mess she’d made of the dining room.

“Ugh. Don’t tease me, man.”

His ears went up. “I’m not.”

“I suck and I know it.” Scowling around the neck of her bottle, Ana took a consoling swallow and made herself put the bottle down. “I’m so far behind, it’s not even funny, and yet I took a two-hour break today just like that was a thing I could do.”

“The h-h-h—HI THERE! I’M YOUR B-B-BEST—hell you did,” said Bonnie, now looking annoyed as well as surprised. “Two hours? When?”

“I don’t know. When was that?” Ana asked herself, rubbing gingerly at her brow and touching a scabby scrape. “Five or six? Maybe? You and Chica were dancing when I started, I remember that.”

“Okay, yeah, that’s what I thought-t-t, but you were working-ing-ing in the bathrooms.”

“Not really.”

His head cocked. “Um, yeah, _really_. You were working all d-d-d—DISECTION ALONG THE ENKEPHALOTIC FISSURE,” he blatted suddenly, right in her frigging face. As she laughed and swatted at the beer she’d startled down the front of her shirt, his ears drooped. “Sh-Shit, sorry. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Ana leaned out to drag her day-pack over and get a dry shirt. “Avert your eyes, my man.”

“Uh…no? Is…Is no an op-p-p—OPERATIONAL PARAMETERS—option? I vote no.”

She laughed again and took her beer-soaked shirt off, tossing it indiscriminately to the floor, and put the fresh one on under Bonnie’s extremely watchful stare. “Anyway, I know it looks like I was working in there, but you get really good at looking like you’re working when you’re in construction. You only saw me moving shit around and avoiding my actual downtime job for the day, which was to disassemble the stalls and sinks and stuff. Two hours,” she groaned, flopping back against the wall and reclaiming what was left of her beer. “I can’t keep putting it off like this. I have got to get at least one of them cleaned out.”

“Why?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know there’s no water or anything, but…” Ana grimaced elaborately and then laughed. “Not to gross you out or anything, my man, but I need to get a camping stool set up inside somewhere. Of the many, many things I could be arrested for if I’m caught here, pissing in a parking lot is just the worst.”

“Well, can I help? WE CAN DO ANYTHING IF WE ALL WORK TOGETHER!”

“No.”

“You sure? I’m pretty s-st-strong.”

“I remember, but it’s really not an issue of strength.”

“What’s the p-p-problem?”

“I don’t know. It’s complicated.” She thought about it, snorted. “I don’t want to. Doesn’t get more complicated than that, does it? It’s so nasty in there. You can’t smell anything, so you’ll have to take my word for it when I say that even with the pipes capped, it’s like a Bible story in those bathrooms. Which,” she sighed, “doesn’t change the fact that the ceilings have to come down, the stalls have to come out, and at least three inches of baked-on shit has to be scraped off the floor in places. I’d literally rather work on the roof when it’s a hundred degrees in the Utah desert than deal with those fucking bathrooms, and you want to know what bothers me the most?”

“What?”

“Fucking Cinnamon and fucking Brewster and especially fucking Lala on those doors.”

Bonnie laughed and poured some beer into himself. “They’re just-t-t pictures.”

“They’ve got no business here. Brewster’s bad enough, but Lala and Cinnamon don’t even fucking live here.”

“I th-th-think the idea was, once F-F-Fr—FREDDY FAZBEAR'S PIZZERIA!” he cheered suddenly and clapped a hand to his muzzle, pinching it shut even as his hyucking laugh came out his speaker anyway. He shuddered himself under control, cautiously released his muzzle and tried again. “Once F-F-F…Fuck me.”

“Freddyland.”

“Yeah, that p-pl-place. Once it opened-d-d, he’d swap them in and out.”

“What, like Brewster and Peggy one month and…I don’t know…Chipper and Miss Kitty the next?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s…wait a minute, what about you guys?”

“Swapped out,” said Bonnie nonchalantly and drank his beer.

“Oh fuck that! Who the hell would come to Freddy’s if Freddy isn’t even there? I mean,” she said lamely, “unless you guys wanted a vacation or whatever. I guess that really ought to be a factor, before I get all worked up on your behalf.”

“You’re f-f-fine.”

“But do you? Want to go to Freddyland, I mean?”

“And do what?” he laughed, waving his beer. “Ride the rides? Play the g-g-games? Win a plushie Foxy?”

“Or, you know, just get out. Fresh air and all that.”

“I d-d-don’t breathe.”

“Blue skies, then.”

“It’s j-j-just as blue here, isn’t it?”

“The Grand Pavilion Hotel has a bigger stage. You could see your name in lights, my man. Maybe finally get that album.”

“Don’t-t-t take this the wrong way, baby girl, because you know I love-ve—PEPPERONI PIZZA—playing that guitar, but if I never sing-ing-ing another word of the Hokey P-P-Pokey, that’s just fine with me.”

“And miss out on that hot Fazbear Band groupie action? Think about it. You could catch some room keys, start building Milf Panty Mountain, or maybe just mingle with the other new faces.” She gave him a nudge in his hard, plastic side. “Wouldn’t you like to see Lala up close and extremely personal?”

Bonnie shrugged. “I n-n-never really thought about it.”

“You never thought about all those hot, curvy bunnygirls down in the Bunny Patch, all draped sensuously over giant fucking zucchini and sucking on carrots? Hell, _I’ve_ thought about it and I don’t even like them.”

He laughed.

“What kind of name is Lala anyway?” Ana asked disgustedly and not at all drunk. “Fucking… _Lala_!”

“It’s French.”

“The hell it is. What, like Oo-la-la?” Ana considered that with a curled lip. “That’s even worse, somehow. Makes her sound like a stripper.” She looked at him. “How do you know it’s French?”

He shrugged, fishing out his third beer and shaking clinging chunks of ice free. “He never had a lot of im-m—IMAGINATION!—when it came to naming-ing-ing us. He d-d-designed and named most of them in one weekend, so, yeah, she’s a F-French lop and he g-g-gave her the first French name he could think of. Angie’s an ang-g-gora, Harley’s a Harlequin, Missy’s a messa…mues…uh, Moooossen…newer?”

“Better slow down on those brews, Bon.”

“Ha ha, but seriously. It’s Mess-something. I can’t-t-t remember and prob-b-bably couldn’t pronounce it, but it’s another lop and it already sounds sort of like Missy. Then there’s Pearl the English perlfee, and…and there’s more I’m forgetting-ing-ing.”

“Dutch, Checkers, Rex and…Martin, I think,” she supplied. “Martin or Marvin. I’m pretty sure it’s Martin.”

“Yeah, it’d-d-d have to be. There’s a silver marten rabbit, but no m-mar-marvin I’m aware of. All the b-b-bunnies from the Bunny Patch are b-b-based off real rabbits, and they’re all named after their b-b-breed.”

“Interesting that you remembered all the girls and forgot all the boys,” Ana remarked, studying the label on her beer. Still Dos Equis. “So if they’re all real bunny breeds, why aren’t you?”

“I’m real.”

“Yeah? What are you?”

“P-P-Purebred lapine lavender badass, b-b-baby.” 

She laughed. As she did so, Bonnie suddenly tipped his head back and pantomimed the most ridiculously over-the-top yawn she’d ever seen outside of a cartoon, capping it all off with a stretch that brought his free arm down around Ana’s shoulders. She snorted beer up her nose and choked it down again, laughing. “Holy shit, Bon, seriously?! That’s got to be the oldest move in the book!”

“Worked, didn’t it?” His hand smoothed down over the top of her short sleeve and came up again on her bare skin to cup her shoulder. “Look at th-th-those stars.”

She looked obediently, amused and a little startled to think she had been sitting here two hours at least, but had only seen the mysterious ductwork and not the sky beyond it. “Pretty amazing, all right. You know, I got used to thinking of the sky over Oxtongue as being ‘full of stars’ just because you can see some. I forgot what a starry night really looks like.” She studied it thoughtfully, countless chips of light, suspended in the dark, so still and so full of movement. “Like a fire, when it’s burned down to embers,” she murmured, smiling.

“Hm?”

“Nothing.” She shifted, trying to make his arm more comfortable without letting him know how uncomfortable it really was. “You ever see stars before?”

“Sure, all the t-t—TIME TO ROCK!—time.” He had another swig of beer, then added, “Windows haven’t-t-t always been b-b-boarded up. We used-d-d to—”

He was interrupted by a chain of tea-kettle whistles and explosions, each one followed by its own colossal scrape and groan of thunder, and each goddamn one made her jump. She tried to defuse her own tension with a laugh when it was finally over and settled with determination even more awkwardly against Bonnie’s arm. 

“You okay?” he asked, his eyes slanting downward just a little.

“I’m fine, I just hate that fucking noise.”

“Fireworks?” 

“Those aren’t fireworks. Fireworks are sparkly. I love fireworks. That’s just fucking noise and it’s too fucking close.” She stopped to listen as a rapid series of pops went off, indistinguishable from a gatling gun in some old movie about Nazis…or a new one about zombies, she guessed. Monsters changed, but the movies didn’t. “I could hear them whooping it up the whole time I was on the roof, which means they could hear me if I started hammering.”

“So? Wouldn’t-t-t they just think you were setting off fireworks too?”

“Yeah, they probably would. Specifically, they’d think I was setting off fireworks _here_. And they might think, ‘Hey, we’re down here and they’re up there and we’ll just do our own thing,’ or they might think, ‘Hey, those guys are blowing up animatronics! Why are we just blowing up rocks?’”

“I see.”

“I’ve been waiting for them to run out of toys and go the fuck home, but they’re still there. Fireworks aren’t cheap these days, for Christ’s sake, how many could they possibly have?” Another round of zombie Nazis went down, with victory celebrated by rebel yells rendered scratchy by distance that was by no means distant enough. “Bunch of drunken assholes.”

“C-C-Come on now. How do you know th-they’re drunk?”

“Because that—” Ana held up a finger and waited for the obligatory ka-boom. It wasn’t long in coming. “—is the kind of thing that only entertains drunken assholes. And I should be grateful, I guess, because sober assholes would be up here blowing the shit out of you instead. Seriously, now, what would you do if one of them came through that door right now?”

Bonnie shrugged. “I usually start with something like, IT’S TIME TO ROCK, and see where it leads, b-b-but I’m going to have trouble getting off the d-d-damn floor tonight.” His head cocked as if he were really thinking it over. “We’d do better just to offer him a b-b-beer.”

“I’m not sharing my damn beer with some low-rent Utah redneck fuckwaffle.”

“F-F-Fuckwaffle,” Bonnie mused. “Shitbiscuits. Hellcake. You kind of g-g-got a thing against bread, don’t y-y-you? Let me guess. You used to work-k-k in a bakery and it was the worst-t-t job you’ve ever had.” 

“Worst job I ever had was in a so-called steakhouse called Cowgirls. Had to wear this super-tight t-shirt and let the bartender squirt me with beer whenever he wanted. Had to smile when drunken assholes were feeling me up. Worst of all, I had to stop what I was doing every twenty minutes to do this stupid clod-hopping country line-dancing horseshit. But yeah, I did work in a bakery once.” She looked at the tattoo on her wrist that proved it, then let her arm drop and her head fall back. “When did we lose this holiday, my man?” she wondered, looking back up at the stars. “The Fourth of July is supposed to be about celebrating our nation’s independence and all the freedoms we have and shit. People should be showing their respect for this country, not blowing the shit out of it and getting hammered.”

“You know, you s-s-say that, but you’re pretty— _eeeee_ —” He casually whapped himself in the throat with his beer bottle, coughed up static, and finished, “—drunk yourself right now.”

“You ever see fireworks, Bonnie?” she asked, sticking stubbornly to what she saw as the point. “Real ones?”

“Not at this place, but at Cir-Cir—CIRCUMJACENT TO THE MEDULLA—Circle Drive, son of a b-b-bitch.” He shook his head, muttering static through his speakers, then went on, “It was always a pop-p-pular place for kids after d-d-dark. They’d set ‘em off in the parking-ing-ing lot and we used to watch until they saw us or the c-c-cops saw them.” He cocked his head at another shriek and explosion. “But no, not here.”

“Why not? This place is nice and isolated, with a good flat parking lot and a building—Jesus!” she sputtered at the end as a fucking sonic boom went off in the quarry, loud enough to rattle the plastic sheets hanging over the doorways. Only when it was over did she realize she’d been sitting stiffly forward the whole time, straining to hear or perhaps poised to leap up and run. Trying to laugh it off, she settled back against the scratchy pillow of Bonnie’s hard arm and finished, “A building between them and the road. This would be a great place to set off fireworks. Why are those idiots down in the quarry and not blowing shit up right here in the parking lot? Or—”

She broke off there, blushing, but Bonnie calmly said, “Or in the d-d-dining room?”

“People break in here all the time. It’s dark, it’s secluded, it’s full of bustable objects. It can only attract the very worst kind of person.”

He glanced at her, plastic eyes moving beneath plastic lids while the rest of his head remained perfectly immobile.

She held up a warning finger. “This is not a story about me, but for the record, I swear, I steal, I trespass, I smoke pot and yes, I swallow. I am, without a doubt, the very worst kind of person.”

He chuckled and tipped his bottle.

“And I broke in. So why didn’t they?” Ana asked as yet another barrage of explosions set themselves off. “Why aren’t they here right now?”

Bonnie shrugged, rocking the arm behind her neck, which wedged it in at a different, even more painful angle. He said, “This p-p-place is supposed to be haunted.”

“By what, the ghost of pizza past?”

He looked at her, his eyelids lowered but level, and said, “Boo,” in a flat, unironic tone.

She thought of Mike Schmidt, then stubbornly slung an arm around his neck and shifted so she sat up a little straighter and could get a little closer. “Should I be scared of you?” she asked in her sultriest voice.

His expression did not change. “Not g-g-gonna lie to you, baby girl, yeah. Yeah, you p-p-probably should.”

“You’d never hurt me.”

“No.” His hand rubbed on her shoulder some more, then pulled her awkwardly against his side. “No, I never would-d-d.”

“You’d never hurt anyone.”

He drank his beer and watched the stars.

Ana petted one of his ears—it flicked against her hand—then stroked his shellac-smooth face. “Did you hurt the guy who hit you?”

“No,” he said after a moment. “And it was a g-g-girl anyway.”

“A girl?” Inappropriate as she knew it was, she had to laugh. Beer and Vicodin together could make a lot of unfunny things funny. “You got beat up by a girl?”

“She had a b-b-bat!”

“Uh oh. Trouble with the ex?” She leaned close again, her mouth brushing at his muzzle with every whispered word: “Did she break your heart, Bonnie?”

“Just my face,” he assured her.

“And then she ran away.”

“Well…” Bonnie rolled one shoulder and drank his beer, muttering, “She _ran,_ ” through his speaker. When he’d downed the last swallow of foam, he shook the bottle dry into his mouth and put it aside, saying, “Anyway, she’s g-g-gone now.”

“She’s gone,” Ana agreed, losing her smile as more bombs went off at the quarry. “But those assholes are still out there. And you’re in here.” She tried to drink, but her throat was closing up. Her voice was too tight when she said, “What if they come inside?”

“Let them.”

“No, you’re not getting it. What if they come…and I can’t stop them?”

He laughed. “You’re c-cu-cute.”

And that’s what she got for thinking she could have a conversation with an animatronic. Sooner or later, he was always going to cross a wire or just spit out the wrong response. He made it so easy to pretend he was real, but in the end, he was just a neat toy with buggy software.

Outside, the quarry boomed.

Ana pushed herself forward and rocked onto her knees.

“Aw, hey! D-D-Don’t go!”

“Relax, I’m not, but your arm is killing me.” She grabbed onto his neck, feeling a hundred years older and five hundred pounds heavier than she was, and shifted herself from the floor at his left side to sit on his right thigh. “Is this okay?” she asked, settling herself gingerly.

“Hell yeah, it is,” he said, ears up and quivering.

“I’m not too heavy? Am I hurting you?”

“Naw, you’re g-g-g—GREAT JOB!—good, baby.”

“I don’t want to break your knee again.”

“My knee’s fine. Solid-d-d as a—TIME TO—rock.” He gave it a slap as if to demonstrate, then hooked it from below and pulled it up in a slightly bent position, which tilted her against him, but at an angle that fought gravity more than aided it.

“Can you tip back?” she asked, trying to adjust herself.

“Yeah, sh-sh-sure, hold this.”

She took his beer and he put both hands on the floor and scooted himself forward a few inches, then leaned back into the wall again. This put his head at an obviously awkward angle, which could not help but be apparent, especially when he tried to drink again.

“Are you comfortable?” she asked guiltily, knowing he couldn’t possibly be.

He laughed again. “Comfort-t-t isn’t really a th-thing for me,” he told her dryly and patted his chest. “C-C-Cuddle up, baby.”

She did, nervous as a cat and slow to relax, but he was weirdly made for it. When he tucked his arm around her and braced it on his bent knee, he formed so flawless a cradle for her that it was impossible to stay tense. Her cheek fit perfectly against his chest; his chin rested perfectly on the crown of her head. 

“I’ve never done this before,” she blurted, fighting laughter and tears together.

“I’ll b-b-be gentle,” he replied, reminding her yet again of all the furtive fumbling sex that had surely gone down within these walls while the animatronics took notes and added fun new phrases to their ever expanding vocabularies.

Another firework went off, the kind that didn’t jump up and send out sparks, but just boomed. The quarry caught the sound, throwing it out bigger and bigger. It sounded like a war zone out there. She could remember being small, running with David along the rocks with nothing but sparklers, trying to write their names in the air with the flashes. She could do it, but he never could, quite. Later, when it got a little darker and they were full up on soda pop and burgers, they’d sit together, she and David on either side of Aunt Easter with her arms warm around them both and watch the fireworks, real ones, the kind that spit colors or jumped up in the air and burst open. And that was what the Fourth of July was supposed to be. Barbeque and fireworks and family.

And just like that, she was crying. Bonnie couldn’t see it, so he didn’t know. He watched the stars and listened to bombs go off in the quarry, and his hand just stroked gently up and down on her bare arm—cold metal and worn fur, abrasive and unpleasant, welcome.

Footsteps. Freddy’s. They came all the way to the plastic sheets that hung over the doorway and stood there at least a minute while Bonnie and Ana pretended not to know he was there. At last, he grunted—he had ten thousand grunts, did Freddy, and that one said he knew damned well they knew he was there—and walked heavily away through the kitchen to the store room and back through the hall to the employee’s lounge.

When he was gone, Bonnie’s speakers emitted a low scuff of sound, neither a grunt nor a chuckle, but something deliberate, not just a crossed wire. He drank some beer.

“I thought he was going to tell us to leave room for the Holy Ghost,” muttered Ana, pretending to scratch her nose so she could wipe her eyes dry.

Now he snorted.

“He doesn’t like me. He’ll never like me.”

Bonnie shifted, trying to look down at her, but he couldn’t bend that way and Ana wasn’t budging to allow it. “You’re k-k-kidding, right? You’re part of the f-f-f—FAZBEAR BAND—family.”

She shook her head. “I swear too much and I smoke pot—”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re the worst-t-t. I remember.”

“You can’t deny I do highly inappropriate things with the animatronics when I get drunk.” 

“You wish. I’d never t-t-take advantage of a drunk woman.” He started to tip his bottle, then gave her a narrow glance as his ears lowered. “You meant-t-t me, right?” 

“Bonnie!”

“Sorry-ry-ry. I just…never mind. Go on. I’m a jealous dick, but I’m listening-ing-ing.”

“I’m a bad influence,” she insisted. “If this place wasn’t shut down, he’d be throwing me out. He’s just looking for one good reason…and he always will be. And you know, he’s the one—don’t take this the wrong way—but he’s the one I needed, when I was little. He’s the one I’ve been waiting my whole life for. Now I’m here and he doesn’t like me.”

“He loves you.”

“No, he doesn’t. You heard him today. I don’t care about anyone or anything. Everything’s just one big joke to me. The only times he’s not actively annoyed with me, he’s just quietly disgusted.”

“Come on.”

“It’s true. Every single time he tells me what to do, he’s really telling me what I’m doing wrong. I’ve been taking care of myself longer than you guys have been around—”

“Yeah, well, I d-d-doubt that. I mean,” he said, awkwardly interrupting his own chuckle. “I mean, um…you couldn’t-t-t have because, uh…you’re t-t-too young.”

“I have,” she insisted. “My mom died when I was fifteen. Rider gave me a place to sleep and money when I needed it, or at least a way to earn it, but he didn’t take care of me. I raised myself. You ever hear the expression, ‘pulled himself up by his bootstraps’? That’s me. By my fucking bootstraps, Bon. You have no idea what my life has been like or how easily I might have ended up dead, but here I am, and all Freddy sees is a fuck-up who has to be watched like a fucking toddler. He doesn’t trust me, he doesn’t like me, and he doesn’t want me around.”

“He loves you,” Bonnie said, stroking her arm. “He just-t-t doesn’t know how to say it.”

She had to laugh. “He says it fifty fucking times a day to an empty fucking room, Bon!”

“Trust me, that’s why it’s hard-d-der to say when you mean it.” Bonnie shrugged with his ears alone. “It’s not what-t-t Freddy says anyway, it’s what he does. Yeah, he g-g-gets on my nerves. I get on his. But he still b-b-bosses me around, because that’s what love is for Freddy. It’s taking-ing-ing care of the people you love, even when they p-p-piss you off. And as b-b-big of a jerk as he can be, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his family-ly-ly. He’d kill to keep you safe.”

“Pfft. Freddy wouldn’t hurt a flea to scratch it.”

His stroking hand stopped moving, then started again. “Fun-n-ny way to put that.”

Something in his too-casual tone made her rewind her words as best she could, only to discover they were, in fact, Mike Schmidt’s words.

“You never heard that one before?” she asked, feigning surprise like it was right up there with ‘gentle as a lamb’ or ‘wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful’.

“Yeah, act-t-t-ually, I think I have. I’m just-t-t not sure where…”

Was this bad? It seemed like it ought to be bad, but the pills were thick in her brain and she couldn’t drum up much feeling for it. She held her bottle up, shaking the last few inches to get Bonnie’s attention and mumbling, “Want the rest? I’m over my limit.”

He took it, swallowed it off, and set the empty bottle aside. “You want-t-t to go to b-b-bed?” he asked, making absolutely no effort to move her.

“Think I might just sleep here. You mind?”

“Do I mind-d-d if we cuddle all night? You’re kidding-ing-ing, right? Who the hell would mind that?” He looked around suddenly, frowning in his plastic way. “Is…Is it cold? You okay? You need a b-b-blanket or anything-ing?”

“No. You’re warm enough.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

She watched the stars for a while. Her eyes had a way of staying shut just a little longer each time she blinked until, try as she might, she couldn’t get them open again until another boom from the quarry slapped the sleep right out of her. She couldn’t bolt up, but she flinched kind of all over and clutched at the stiff bristles that used to be a thick ruff on Bonnie’s chest. Once again, and for no reason, tears threatened, but Bonnie’s hand just kept moving the whole time, up and down, up and down, shoulder to elbow and back. Cool metal. Bare skin. She was not a snuggler and never had been, but it was strangely comforting to have Bonnie’s arm around her and to feel the heat emanating from his works. His cooling system ran in steady cycles, like breathing; his internal mechanisms included a pump, like a heartbeat. He held her and for the first time in her entire life, that was nice.

Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier and finally closed. “Bonnie?”

“Yeah?”

“Which…Which bunnygirl do you think is the hottest?”

He chuckled through his speaker, a strange sound to hear when the ‘breath’ cycling through his body never interrupted its steady rhythm. “None of ‘em.”

“Who, then? I guess it doesn’t have to be a bunny. Cleocatra? Amelia Owlheart?” She thought back to the poster, groping through impending sleep for names. “Peggy? She’s all about the bass.”

“She sure is and I d-d-do like bass, but to tell you the t-tr-truth, I could never g-g-get into furries. God knows, I’m in no position to judge, but that shit’s just-t-t weird.”

She couldn’t open her eyes for that either, but she laughed. He laughed with her, then just sat quiet, humming and clicking beneath his skin, holding her until she slept.


	8. Chapter 8

# CHAPTER EIGHT

A lifetime of temporary living situations had made it so that Ana rarely found it difficult to fall asleep, no matter where she was. And she was by nature a deep sleeper, even sober; with a beer or two in her, she usually slept like a snoring stone. If it was true that the infrequent shriek/bang of fireworks and Freddy’s regular stopovers kept her from really achieving that perfect black-out state of suspended animation, at least it was also true that she couldn’t get too upset either, not with Bonnie’s arms around her and the steady rhythms of his systems thrumming under his skin. 

However, even if the constant disturbances to her sleep did not upset her, they were still disorientating. She dreamed and woke, dreamed and woke, until a dozen dreams seemed to seamlessly meld with her beer-blurred recollections of the night before to create an uninterrupted and entirely false memory, one in which she talked about the Independence Day spirit and how Freddy didn’t like her and he talked about the girl who’d broken his face in with a bat and that the Bunny Patch bunnies were all named after real rabbit breeds. And while she was pretty sure all of this had actually happened, sprinkled throughout were nuggets of pure nonsense, like the false fact that at one point, there had been deer grazing on the show stage, or that David had run through the room trying to write his name in the air with a sparkler, or that Bonnie had talked about watching the fireworks in the parking lot at Circle Drive when he was no older than this building.

She felt no real urge to sort out fact from fiction. As far as she was concerned, it could all be a dream as long as this part—the part where she woke in the night and heard Bonnie ‘breathing’—was real. And it was, so fuck the rest.

As the night wore on, the fireworks petered out, but Freddy’s patrols remained as consistent as ever. She woke each time he passed through, if only long enough to identify the slow scrape-thud of his footfalls before letting Bonnie’s presence lull her back to sleep. So when yet another fragment of dream blew unexpectedly apart, she did not startle up in alarm. She listened and sure enough, plastic crinkled as Freddy came into the dining area. 

Bonnie didn’t move as the footsteps drew nearer, but Ana heard the distinctive sound of his eyes turning and focusing, watching Freddy come.

Freddy’s footsteps stopped right in front of them. A pause. Then, with a smile he could not make but which Ana could all but see: “IT’S. NOT. WHAT. IT. LOOKS. LIKE. RIGHT.”

“I wish,” said Bonnie, as quietly as he could. His jaw didn’t move. Trying not to wake her. “You’re an ass, by the way. Remind me to t-t-tell you why.”

Freddy grunted affably and mechanisms whirred as he made some unseen gesture. “IS. SHE. SLEEPING.”

“Yeah.”

“No, I’m not,” Ana mumbled. “What time is it?”

“ALMOST. SIX.”

“Christ, I slept in.” 

“You d-d-don’t have to get up yet.”

“Yeah, I do,” she sighed. “Not enough hours, my man. Every one of them counts.” Ana stirred, drawing in her legs and stretching them out again, opening her eyes. She saw a field of pale, dingy purple first—Bonnie, lit up by Freddy’s eyes—and then her arm, which had slipped sometime in the night from resting on his chest to cupping the Ken-doll-smooth front of his groin.

Ana looked at that for a while, sleepily amused, then raised her head to find Bonnie looking back at her.

“Looks like I want to start the day with a bang,” she said in her fresh-from-sleep throaty purr. “You up for it, my man?” 

His ears snapped up. “Really? I mean, yeah! YOU BET! D-D-Damn it. Freddy, sc-scram. I mean, are you serious? B-B-Because if you’re not, that’s c-c-cool, but if you are, um, we may need-d-d to work a few th-things out first. Freddy, for real, get-t-t lost.”

Freddy rolled his eyes. “COME. ON. WE. DON’T. HAVE. TIME. FOR. THIS.”

Bonnie shooed a hand at him, waggling his ears at Ana. “I g-g-got twelve and a half m-m-minutes. Get out-t-t of here!”

“Hey, if he doesn’t want to leave,” she said, wrapping her arms around his fuzzy neck, “then let the bear watch.”

Bonnie’s hoot became a groan of resignation as Freddy bent and wedged his huge hand between them. Laughing, Ana rolled away and let the two of them wrangle Bonnie off the floor and onto his feet. 

“S-Spoils-s-sport,” Bonnie grumbled.

“It’s okay,” she told him. “Twelve and a half minutes is not enough time for me, but just wait until after the weekend. If I can actually pull this off, I’m going to put on a celebration show you will never forget. You and me, my man, center-stage, all night long.”

“GUESTS ARE NOT ALLOWED ONSTAGE,” Freddy corrected, folding his arms with an impressive glower. “KEEP. THAT. NONSENSE. OUT. OF. THE. DINING. ROOM. IN. FACT. KEEP. IT. OUT. OF. THE. WHOLE. BUILDING.”

“Prude.” Ana stood up and pulled Bonnie’s head down, positioning his muzzle for a nose-rub and a good morning kiss. “What do you say, my man? If I get the roof on, are you going to show me the stars?” 

“Sure, but…” Bonnie looked up, then at her. “If the roof’s on, we won’t-t-t be able to see them.”

She stared at him, one eyebrow raised as she waited for him to catch on. Funnier, Freddy stared at him too, and in exactly the same way.

Bonnie looked back and forth between them, his ears folding self-consciously forward. “What-t?”

“Those aren’t the stars I mean, Bon,” she said pointedly.

The mechanisms behind Bonnie’s long-gone eyebrows scratched away inside his head as he tried to furrow them with thought. She knew when he finally caught on when his ears snapped straight up.

“I. DON’T. KNOW. WHAT. SHE. SEES. IN. YOU,” Freddy said, shaking his head as he turned around. “AN-N-A. GET. SOMETHING. TO. EAT. BEFORE. YOU. START. WORKING. AND. C-C-COFFEE. DOESN’T. COUNT.”

“Number one, don’t tell me what to do,” Ana replied, running her gaze critically down his back as he walked away. He did look funny—that bare stripe of ‘skin’ running down his spine, like he’d been shaved by the last batch of vandals to break in—but there were no new cracks and, as he’d said yesterday, there were worse things than looking silly. “Number two, I’ve got to go to Gallifrey’s to pay off the garbage guy, remember? So breakfast is taken care of. Number three, coffee always counts. And last but not least, don’t tell me what to do, bear!”

“MY. NAME. MAY. NOT. BE. ON. THE. BUILDING. ANY. MORE. BUT. THIS. IS. STILL. MY. HOUSE,” he told her, limping up the stage steps. “AND. IN. MY. HOUSE. YOU. OBEY. MY. RULES.”

“Oh my God, Freddy, you did not just say that.”

“RULE NUMBER FORTY-TWO.” He turned with effort to face her and pointed for good measure. “EAT A HEALTHY BREAKFAST EVERY MORNING.”

“I’ll have you know coffee is a bean,” said Ana, collecting last night’s beer bottles and setting them on the table. “That means it’s practically a vegetable and vegetables are healthy.” 

Freddy snorted and turned his head without taking his eyes off her. “CHICA. DID. YOU. HEAR. THAT.”

“Here we g-g-go,” muttered Bonnie.

From the hallway out of sight came an answering, “COFFEE DOESN’T REALLY COME FROM A BEAN. IT’S THE SEED OF A FRUIT TREE, CALLED A CHERRY! AND JUST LIKE THE CHERRIES YOU EAT, WHEN IT TURNS A DEEP RED, IT’S READY TO BE PICKED! AFTER THE SEED IS EXTRACTED, IT’S DRIED, ROASTED, GROUND AND BREWED TO MAKE THE COFFEE YOU KNOW!”

“As part of a healthy breakfast,” Ana prompted.

Bonnie glanced back at her as he picked up his guitar. “You just d-d-don’t learn, do you?” 

“COFFEE HAS NO ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS,” Chica replied, waddling through the plastic sheets. “AND IT CONTAINS CAFFEINE, WHICH HAS BEEN LINKED TO SERIOUS HEALTH RISKS IN HIGH AMOUNTS.”

“Horseshit.” Ana checked the level of ice in the cooler and helped herself to a bottle of water, giving it a shake in Chica’s direction. “Water is dangerous if you drink enough of it.”

“ITS CULTIVATION HAS A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON DEFORESTATION AND WATER SUSTAINABILITY, PARTICULARLY IN AREAS ALREADY HEAVILY AFFECTED BY DROUGHT—”

“THANK YOU, CHICA,” said Freddy, taking his microphone out of its storing place in his abdomen.

“I’m still drinking it,” Ana declared.

“HEALTHY HABITS LAST A LIFETIME.”

“So do bad ones, you just don’t live as long.” Ignoring Freddy disapproving scowl, Ana went to her ‘room’ and picked through her laundry until she found a shirt that didn’t smell like beer, sweat and Bonnie. Her Mordor Fun-Run tee, perfectly acceptable to wear in public on a Mammon morning. Excellent. She turned her back to the stage and changed.

Freddy grunted behind her.

“I swear to God, I’m going to start shaking my naked tits in your face every morning until you get used to seeing them, you giant pantsless prude. Okay, I’m leaving,” she announced, counting out the bribe money and tucking it into an envelope that had once held her sanitation bill. “I should be back before you guys wake up, but if I’m not, just remember to watch your step. There’s lots of lumber and shit lying around. I need them where they are, so don’t touch anything. Got that?”

No response. When Ana looked back, she saw all three animatronics silent on stage, heads down and eyes shut, powered down to await the restaurant’s opening. She looked at her watch; three seconds after six.

“I’ll see you later,” she told them, but her voice fell flat, unheard. Whatever life she imagined she saw in them was gone now and she was once again a grown woman in an empty building talking to toys. Uncomfortable, she shouldered her day pack, averted her eyes from the stage, and left.

With the help of her truck’s mirror and a little bag of cosmetics she’d picked up in town yesterday, Ana cleaned herself up to pass a public inspection. It had been a long time since she’d felt the need to cover a bruise and she’d thought the knowledge was long dead and buried, but apparently, the grave wasn’t deep. When she was done, she brushed her hair out and hung it over that side of her face. Now she looked like a woman trying to cover up a massive puffy black eye, which meant she’d get a double-take from anyone who got a good look, but that was better than winces and stares from literally everyone who saw her.

At six-thirty on a Tuesday morning, Gallifrey’s was already busy, full of working men and women grabbing a bite to eat before rushing off to a job they were lucky to have in this dying small town. Ana parked in the mall lot, now just the empty lot, and walked in, stopping once to buy a newspaper and run a disinterested eye over the movies in the rental box. There were a few titles that looked interesting, but the only TV and DVD player she had at the moment were down in the secret basement playroom, and she didn’t want to watch anything bad enough to watch it there. Maybe once the job at Freddy’s was over and she could focus once more on her actual house, she’d take that room apart, strip it to the walls, paint it over…or just brick it up. Be done with it. In time, she might even forget about it.

Lucy did not greet her when the bell over the door rang out, although she must have seen her because she called out, “Timothy! Put the coffee on!” as she rushed by with half a dozen plates balanced from her wrists to her shoulders on the way to deliver breakfast to a waiting table.

Ana waited, pretending interest in the photographs framed on the wall behind the register so she had an excuse to keep her face turned. Old customers paid and left. New ones came, filling the small lobby area until finally Lucy rushed by with another armload of plates and hollered, “If you see an empty seat, take it. I’ll be with you as soon as I can!”

Ana took that blanket permission to include her and went to her booth in the furthest corner from the hubbub of the breakfast crowd. The table was not clean, but Ana just pushed the dirty dishes to the side and sat down. She lay out her newspaper, skimming articles as she folded the middle section into a fairly secure little pocket, then tucked her envelope inside and closed it all up again, pretending to read the front page. Apparently, there’d been a town meeting to discuss the upcoming renovations downtown and feelings were strong, but divisive. The girls’ softball team, the Mammon Minirinas, had soundly trounced the Warren Rabbits at last night’s game and their coach had promised a day at the water park in St. George if they also beat the Damsels next Tuesday. In other so-called news, excitement was building for the Fourth of July celebrations, as documented by a photograph of Wyborn, Slater and Shelly himself busily setting up booths at the fairgrounds.

If she hadn’t gotten fired, she’d probably be in that picture, too. Also, more booths would be up.

Ana put the paper aside and picked up the menu. She was hungry, but although her stomach was willing to take on any number of items, her sore jaw vetoed them all. When Lucy came by to wipe down the table and pour her coffee, Ana grudgingly settled on a bowl of hot cereal and maple sugar for now, but to feed the optimist in her later, asked if she could also get a Betty Burger to go.

“We don’t serve lunch until eleven,” Lucy told her, although her severity wavered as she got another good look at Ana’s face under the baffle of her hair. “But I’ll see what I can do for you.”

“Thanks.” Ana settled back with her coffee and tried to get comfortable. God, she hurt. The second day after any injury was always the worst. She’d loosen up once she was on the roof and working, but right now, resting here in this padded booth, she felt like one big throb. And her hair was a mess, she noticed. Already. Just _sitting_ here! 

Her attention wandered out the window and through the town until she arrived at Freddy’s and was once again on the roof, taking it apart piece by piece and building it back again, until she was left with the problem of the solar panel. Even in her mind, she resisted the idea of cutting it apart and tossing them into the parking lot to shatter, but damned if she could think of a feasible alternative.

Deep in these thoughts, Ana did not see the man approach until he had physically plopped himself down in her booth.

“Hi there!” said Chad, picking up her newspaper. “That today’s—”

Ana, startled, slammed her hand down over the paper and yanked it closer to her edge of the table, but fortunately, Chad was too surprised by her black eye and split lip to wonder over her possessiveness. 

“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, actually reaching as if to push her hair back so he could see more of it.

Ana jerked away as much as the confines of the booth allowed. “None of your business! What the hell? Keep your fucking hands to yourself!”

“Manners, Chad.”

And here, like the visage of Grim Death himself, came the grandfather, Mr. Faust. One half of the two minds behind the Fazbear Empire that ruled in Mammon and, if Mike Schmidt was to be believed, knowing accomplice to hundreds of murders. He was wearing his dark glasses again, even here indoors, but she could feel his eyes moving over her, missing nothing.

“It’s nothing,” said Ana, forestalling any questions she’d be more or less obligated to answer when they came from the self-possessed old man and not his grandson. “Work related incident, that’s all.”

“I thought you got fired.” Chad laughed when Ana threw him a hot glare. “Small town. Everybody knows the big guy gave you the boot. And then you gave the other guy the finger, so what’s that leave? Is there some secret underground cage-fighting circuit in this town I don’t know about, because that would be awesome.”

Ana scrolled mentally back through his words and highlighted the ones of interest. “Villart is actually talking that phone call around? What is he saying?”

“Chad, we do not discuss business at the table. May we join you?” Mr. Faust tipped his cane ever so slightly toward her, almost a gesture of apology. “You’re in our usual booth.”

And between the time Ana had walked into the diner and now, the few empty tables had indeed filled up. She supposed she could just tell him to wait his turn, but instead, she folded her paper and set it beside her on the seat, symbolically making room for him. Men like Faust didn’t wait for tables, and anyway, while the grandson could be a bit abrasive, she sort of liked the old man’s company, or had, prior to her ‘dinner date’ with Schmidt.

“You might want to think twice before you let yourself be seen with me,” she said as he sat down. “Apparently, my bad reputation is getting worse. It’ll rub off on you.”

“I have reputation in spades, Miss Stark. We can rub off on each other. Oh for goodness sakes,” he sighed as his grandson smothered a snicker. “Forgive me. I promise you my mind is not half so filthy as my mouth would have you think.”

“It’s fine,” said Ana, who was not blushing.

“I only meant to say that when one has money, notoriety soon follows, mostly unfounded. After all these years, I am thoroughly inoculated against its effects. But you are still young,” he remarked, frowning as if he were only just observing this fact. “I suppose for your sake, I ought to keep a better distance. Small towns have long memories and sometimes people do more than talk.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yes.” His shadowed gaze brushed across her cheek like fingers, but he still did not comment. “Well then. Armored as we both are against the slings and arrows of outrage, shall we watch the fireworks together this weekend? I’m obliged to preside. I could easily have another chair brought to the viewing booth.”

“Thanks anyway,” said Ana, “but I have plans this weekend.”

“Oh yeah?” Chad’s grin widened, showing off his white, even teeth. “What could possibly be more important than the Eleventy-first Annual Pissant Parade and Wienie Roast or whatever the fuck it is they do here?”

“I’m putting a roof up.”

Chad squinted like he was looking at her through a microscope. “Are you serious? Fourth of July Weekend is the closest thing this town has to Mardi Gras and you’re putting up a roof?”

“You seen one Pissant Parade, you seen ‘em all.”

“You think this is bad, just wait until Pioneer Day,” said another voice. 

It was Tiny Tim, out of the kitchen for only the second time Ana had ever known and for the same reason; he brought her breakfast and the coffeepot.

“Thanks,” said Ana, holding out her cup to be filled. “I guess we were getting a little loud, huh?”

“No, no,” said Tim, plainly meaning yes. 

“We’ll dial it down,” Ana promised, “and try to keep it family-friendly.”

“You’re fine,” said Tim. Translation: _See that you do._ After setting two more cups down and filling them all, he turned to Mr. Faust and said, “What can I get you, sir?”

“English muffin, please, toasted, unbuttered. Chad?”

“I don’t know.” Chad slumped back in the booth and plucked disinterestedly at the corner of the menu. “Steak and eggs again, I guess. Medium-rare, if you think you’ve finally figured that out.”

“Coming up.” Tim turned away, revealing a much smaller man who had been entirely invisible behind him. “Whoops, sorry. Need something?”

“No, um…No, I just, ah…” The man fidgeted closer, pointing at the newspaper which was itself entirely invisible from his position, tucked between Ana and the wall. “You done with that? I, uh…didn’t have exact change for the box.”

He said the last words with extra emphasis, noticeable enough that both Chad and his grandfather glanced around at him.

“No problem,” said Tiny Tim with a genial shrug. “Shelly usually leaves his. Go see if it’s over by the pie case—”

“I want hers!” the other man blurted and turned a deep brick-red. “I mean…you know, I’m already over here…”

“Sure,” said Ana, passing it over and stifling a sigh as she watched him casually bolt out the door.

Tiny Tim headed for the kitchen, shaking his head and muttering, “…jumpier than a cricket on a griddle…” under his breath.

“You wouldn’t let me read the paper,” remarked Chad while his grandfather turned in the booth to keep watching the other man jog across the lot to his car with the folded newspaper clutched in both hands to his chest.

“He asked,” said Ana. She gave her cereal a self-conscious stir, wondering if she should wait for the other two to get their food or whether it was all right to just eat. Hot cereal didn’t taste the same cold. That’s why they put hot right in the name. “You just tried to take it.”

“You act like I did it at gunpoint, lady. All I wanted was the sports page.” Chad picked up his cup and made a production out of inspecting it. “Someone put an extra scoop of bitch in the beans this morning or what?”

“Coffee’s not a bean,” said Ana. “It’s the seed of a fruit tree and it’s called a cherry.”

Mr. Faust looked at her. 

“So, two scoops of bitch, then,” Chad said dryly.

“Mind your manners,” said his grandfather, still staring at Ana.

“Yeah, yeah. ‘Mind your manners,’” Chad said in a baritone sing-song impression of his grandfather. “Everybody else can do whatever, but everything I friggin’ do, he’s got to turn it into an object lesson on how to be a better boy scout.” 

“I appreciate the fact that you needn’t indulge me,” said Mr. Faust, stirring cream into his coffee with frowning concentration. “You have the advantage of a handsome face and full wallet, which is advantage enough to succeed at most things in life. For good or ill, our present kakistocracy has created a society ruled by and feeding from a culture of personality, and I confess you would be far better served to develop one of those rather than manners none of your chosen peers would recognize, let alone value.”

“Exactly,” Chad snorted, then blinked and looked around at him. “Wait, what?”

Mr. Faust raised an eyebrow. “Mm? Forgive me, Chad, woolgathering. Miss Stark, the fireworks don’t start until eleven. I’m sure you’ll be done with your shingling by that hour, so if you have nothing better to do, you might drop by. If not, so it goes, but I’ll keep a place reserved for you, on the off-chance.”

“If I can,” said Ana, knowing she wouldn’t.

And he knew it, too. His refusal to acknowledge the lie only made it stand out that much more.

“You needn’t wait for us,” he said, nodding toward her bowl. “Hot gruel is one of the finest fares on a cold winter’s morning. Cold gruel on a summer day is, however, execrable. Please, eat.”

Ana did, pushing her hair back to avoid bedazzling it with clumps of cereal, unavoidably exposing the full majesty that was her face.

Chad whistled, low and slow. 

His grandfather looked once, then looked away and drank his coffee.

“Come clean, lady,” Chad said, smiling. “Someone break a barstool over your head or what?”

“Nope. Just took a hard fall.”

“Off a cliff?”

“Through a roof,” Ana said, caving slightly. “Hence the reason I’m missing the festivities.”

This was finally satisfactory for Chad, who said, “Sucks,” and took out his phone to pass the time until his food showed up, but now his grandfather was giving her a second look.

“I had been given to understand the house was in better condition than that.”

Ana started to ask just who had given him to understand that, then let it go with a laugh. Small town. The business with the lawyer strong-arming the house out from under the order to condemn had probably been good for at least a month’s chatter. “Mine is,” she said. “It’s not my roof. I’m doing it for a friend.”

“I see.” He studied her while she ate, then suddenly said, “Not we?”

“Excuse me?”

“You keep saying ‘I’ in reference to the roof. Not ‘we’.”

She could have asked him what business it was of his. She could have lied and told him she’d be in charge of a crew. Instead, she shrugged and nodded. “I can do it.”

“Alone?”

“The work itself is pretty straightforward, just time and labor intensive. I know what I’m doing.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” asked the seventy-year-old man in formal dress with a sincere little frown.

Ana laughed. 

He did not seem to see the humor.

“Okay, look,” she said, still grinning. “No offense, but you were a working man once, right?”

“I was.”

“You built things. Maybe not buildings, but you put stuff together with your hands, right?”

“Yes.”

Ana looked him in the eye as best she could with those dark glasses in the way, and said, “What’s the best help you ever got?”

“For those who couldn’t, to stay out of my way,” he replied without hesitation, then immediately followed up with, “And for someone else to tell me what my limits were when I lost sight of them.”

“Yeah, well, I appreciate your concern, but I will be fine.” She started to eat, paused…laughed a little and ate some cereal.

“You thought of something.”

“No. It’s nothing. Wild hare, nothing to do with you.”

Mr. Faust gazed at her for a moment in stone-faced silence, then picked up his coffee cup and murmured, “It’s the lying I find most hurtful.”

Ana rolled her eyes. “Oh Jesus. Fine. You want to hear it?”

“Please.”

“If you happen to have a portable pneumatic arm lying around that I can borrow…?” said Ana, spreading her hands to frame the outrageousness of the request so they could all laugh at it and then pretend it had never happened.

“You know I do,” he said, with just a hint of bewilderment around the eyebrows. “Oh, I see. Yes, certainly you may borrow it. In fact, you can keep it.”

“What?” said Ana and Chad in unison.

“It’s of no practical use to me any longer. I haven’t touched it except to maintain it in over a decade. Besides, I’m old. I could slough off this mortal coil any minute, and I’ll sleep better knowing the boy won’t have to explain to a military court what a free-standing pneumatic manipulator arm developed by the U.S. Government strictly for its own use is doing in his basement after he’s caught trying to sell it on eBay.”

“Would they really arrest me?” Chad asked curiously.

“Dear boy, there’s a very good chance they’d shoot you.”

“Are you sure?” Ana asked, stunned.

“Oh easily,” the old man replied with a dismissive wave. “The military doesn’t think anything’s worth having if it doesn’t cost six figures or more. And that was in the fifties. You can imagine what they’d pay for it now. I stole it from a classified project, which is treason as well as theft, and if I had the bad luck to lift it at any time while this country was engaged in any kind of military action, then it’s war profiteering on top of everything else. They’ll shoot him, reload and shoot him again.” Mr. Faust raised his cup in salute to his grandson’s execution and drank, adding pleasantly, “They’ll probably dig me up and shoot me for good measure.”

“No, I mean, are you sure I can have it?”

“Certainly,” he said again. “It has been a good tool to me for many years. I regret I have not put it to good use. If you think you can, come and be welcome to it. I trust you to dispose of it discreetly.”

She should have refused. Failing that, she should have said thank you or at least made some half-assed offer of grossly insufficient payment. Funny, how she could never seem to say the things she should say to this man, and yet still end up saying too much.

“Why would you do this?” she asked without planning to. “You don’t even know me.”

He looked at her, faceless as only a man in dark glasses can be. After a long, unquiet silence, he said, “I would like to know you. For all the good that wishing does, I wish that were appropriate. It is not. There can be no interaction between us innocent enough to deflect rumor. I am old and wealthy. You are young and pretty. Small minds will always leap to the basest conclusion.”

Chad made a sarcastic observation with his eyebrows alone and continued playing with his phone.

“I assure you my interest is not prurient. I am merely an old builder in a position to help a young one.”

“I’m not suggesting anything hinky. It’s just…no offense, but a lot of the time, ‘free’ is just a euphemism for ‘now I own you’.”

“Do I strike you as that sort of man?”

“Well, I really want that arm, so I’m going to say no, but we both know I don’t mean it, right? You own the rest of this town. Why shouldn’t you want me, if only to complete the set?”

“It’s a pity I will never know you better, Miss Stark,” he said with a smile. “I think we understand each other. Very well. As neither one of us is entirely comfortable with a gift, shall we negotiate extortion? Accept it now or I’ll bequeath it to you in my will. That will leave Chad to explain its existence and you to explain my motives, and neither one of you will get to keep the arm.”

Ana considered him over her coffee cup. “I believe you’d actually do that.”

“Oh, I’ve done far worse with better intentions,” he agreed.

She pretended to think about it, but in her mind, she was already out of the diner and down the road, first to Lowes to pick up some scaffolding, and then to Freddy’s, using her new arm to easily pass stacks of lumber from the dock to the scaffold and from the scaffold to the roof, doing in minutes what would take the rest of the day on her own. The problem of the solar panel, solved. She might even be able to use it to pry the security doors open. Hell, she was tempted to find out where Shelly was working today and drive by with the thing extended out the back of her truck, giving him the fuck-you finger. If he was missing her roombuilder app and laser-point measuring tape already, he’d shit a brick over losing access to a goddamn portable pneumatic arm. 

And really, wasn’t that the best reason to get one?

“Can I pick it up today?” she asked.

“As soon as you like,” he replied with half a shrug.

“I hope you’re not just saying that to be polite,” Ana warned. “Because if you had plans to go anywhere after breakfast, I’m about to change ‘em.”

“For as much as I have labored in my life to express myself well and encourage mannerly habits in others, Miss Stark, I never say anything ‘just’ to be polite,” Mr. Faust said gravely. “If you like, I’ll have our breakfasts boxed and we’ll leave immediately.”

She was enough of a bitch to be tempted, not quite enough to do it. 

“After you eat is soon enough for me,” she said.

He offered a handshake to seal the deal, and Chad actually looked up from his phone to watch, this little ritual outside of time being more interesting than whatever his friend was texting. Ana took his hand carefully. It was age-thin and well-cared for, but the calluses he’d built in his youth were still discernable.

‘These are the hands that built Bonnie,’ she thought and found that she believed it. Uneasily, she thought, ‘These are the hands that built Bonnie to kill,’ but that one just bounced around for a while, an echo in an unlit basement, all scary noise that could only sound as big as it was because the room was dark and empty.

She shook with him and let go.

Tiny Tim was coming back with plates in hand. “Got your burger on the grill,” he told Ana, setting them down. “I’ll have it boxed and waiting by the register whenever you’re ready. How many checks today, folks?”

“Just one,” said Ana, digging out her wallet. “And I got it.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” murmured Chad without looking up from his phone. “I’m the stupid one for theoretically trying to sell it on eBay, which I wouldn’t do, but she thinks she’s going to buy it for the price of an overcooked steak and eggs at this dump.”

Ana shrugged, passing a couple bills over to a stone-faced Tiny Tim. “Two checks,” she amended. “He’s paying for himself.”

Now Chad looked up, first at Ana with an irritated little smile, than at his grandfather, who merely sipped his coffee and looked back at him. “Come on,” he said. 

“Mm?”

“You’re going to get this, right?”

“I certainly could, but I don’t think I will.”

“Come on,” Chad said again, tersely now. “I didn’t bring any money. You’ve got to.”

“I’m sure the proprietor will allow you to wash dishes or something similar until the debt is expunged. They seem to be rather short of help this morning,” Mr. Faust added, glancing around the crowded diner. “Mr. Gallifrey?”

“I’d allow it,” said Tiny Tim, although his tone and expression suggested he was allowing it under duress. “Two hours ought to about cover it.”

Chad stared a moment, actually open-mouthed. He tried laughing, then threw up his hands and said, “Come on! You cannot be serious with this shit! Lady,” he laughed, turning to Ana. “Pay my fucking check!”

“Wow. No. And also, you want to watch it, because they will throw your shiny behind out of here for cussing too loud. There are kids present.”

“Well, then I’m not eating it!” Chad announced, pushing the plate away. “You can’t make me pay for something I didn’t eat!”

“I’ll take it,” Ana added, bringing out a few more bills. “Box that up for me.”

“Will do,” said Tiny Tim, taking back the plate. 

“Oh, come _on_!”

“There’s a lesson to be learned in this,” said Mr. Faust, taking up knife and fork and taking the first precise cut into his English muffin. “If you can’t pay your way in the world, it behooves you to be charming. Therefore, manners matter.”

Chad looked at him— _I plan to be rich_ , those eyes said—then at Ana—she couldn’t read that stare as easily—and then picked up his phone and began the first of many angry texts in silence.

# *** 

Bonnie was still onstage and waiting for the restaurant to open when Ana came back. She was in a good mood, talking to herself and to them as she carried things through the building, and after some banging around outside off the loading dock, she climbed up to the roof and there, she pretty much stayed. Oh, she came down every now and then. At least, there were times he could hear her boots or the rattling wheels of her handcart, but she never came into the dining room. 

The roof fell away, room by room, under Ana’s expert control. By the end of the noon set, it was gone everywhere that Bonnie was pathed to go, although it was still up over the north end of the building, mainly Pirate Cove. And by the start of the two o’clock show she had finished clearing the mess out and started framing the new roof in. 

It was quiet work, eerily so. The quiet room, where she did her cutting, reduced the roar of her generator and the shrill of the saw to a white-noise hum he couldn’t hear at all if he wasn’t standing right outside the door with his ears aimed at it. Up on the roof, she installed the new beams with just a few purrs of a drill. All day, Bonnie listened to the endless distracted one-sided conversations she carried on with her tools, the lumber, the job itself, the wind, and whatever else blew across her brain. He even heard her singing distractedly along with a few songs as she worked, but she never called out to him, not once. Ana at work was Ana in her own world, and she never looked down to notice him looking up.

So the day passed, maddeningly uneventful, until the middle of the five o’clock set, when Ana’s drill shut itself off—that alone was not strange—followed by a fierce, “Fuck,”—also not unusual—and then followed by the sound of an engine, still far away but perfectly clear, with no roof to mute the sound. 

Freddy stopped singing and took a step toward the stairs, only to stop and look up, tracking Ana as she darted across the bare beams in careless defiance of a fall, to hunker down at the very edge of perception behind the ruins of the Fazbear sign. 

Another engine. And another. And maybe another, although by then, the first one was roaring by and the sounds were all blurring together. It didn’t turn in…but it didn’t turn around either.

“Jesus crumpet-eating Christ!” Ana spat and as soon as the last car was past, she was running back across the beams, jumping onto the crawlway and climbing it down to the roof of the parts room, and from there, dropping onto the stage behind Freddy. “I know, I know, rule whatever! Get off the stage!” she said, already running for the kitchen.

Bonnie, helplessly playing guitar for a song Freddy wasn’t even singing anymore, could only listen as Ana rattled around outside and brought the loading dock door banging down. Then she was off and running down the East Hall.

Freddy waited with the rest of them, frustration in every twitch of his ear and restless flexing of his fingers on his microphone.

Ana came back through the West Hall, still running, bursting through the plastic sheets somewhat out of breath and out again through the other sheets into the lobby. She rattled at the drop-link barricade there, muttering to herself, then was in and out again, this time to the playground door to make sure it was shut. It was and soon she was back in the dining room, unbuckling her toolbelt and dropping it on the table, but taking back her utility knife for her boot, a screwdriver for the back of her belt, and a clawhead hammer which she kept in her hand. Lifting the curtain on her ‘bedroom’, she rummaged quickly through her cardboard cubbyholes until she found something—Bonnie couldn’t get a good look, just that it was small and black and possibly plastic—and then she ran back for the West Hall.

She stayed gone long enough that the act ended. Freed now to mingle with the guests in their own limited daytime way, nonetheless, none of them moved. Chica tapped her fingers a few times, stopped, started again. That little sound was all the noise they made and the wind was big enough to cover it.

Just before the five-minute warning went off in Bonnie’s internal countdown, Ana came back, walking now. That small black object she’d grabbed before running out was revealed, now that Bonnie could see it clearly, as binoculars. She glanced at them as she went to reclaim her toolbelt, but she was distracted, difficult to read. Bonnie looked at the hammer in her hand; clean, but it wasn’t that hard to clean a hammer, was it? Sand would take blood off metal pretty easily, as they all knew.

“Freddy, got a minute?” she said, removing the screwdriver and utility knife from their respective places and returning them to her toolbelt.

“YES,” said Freddy, visibly shaking off his own internal countdown and leaving the stage. “WHAT IS IT? WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?”

“I need your help.”

Bonnie triggered and blurted, “CAN I HELP?” just as Chica shivered out a cheerful, “I LOVE TO HELP MY FRIENDS! I CAN BAKE THE CUPCAKES!” of her own.

“There are a bunch of guys down in the quarry,” said Ana, ignoring them as she buckled her toolbelt on. “Looks like they’re just paintballing for now and that’s fine. I’m going to try and keep an eye on them, but I can’t afford to just take the rest of the day off to watch them, especially if it turns out they’re just going to fuck around at the quarry all afternoon. Now I know you like to poke your head outside from time to time and check to make sure no one’s loitering in the parking lot, so just…when you do, kind of look out for these guys and if they start looking like they’re making their way up here—”

“ARE WE GOING TO HAVE A PARTY?” Freddy asked.

“LET’S ROCK!” Bonnie agreed.

“Okay, here’s the thing. I know you like guests and all that, and I realize you think the restaurant is still open at the moment, but if those guys come knocking, do not open the doors. And if they get in anyway, do not go greet them. Just get my attention and let me handle them. Go to Pirate Cove and try not to let them see you at all. Got that?”

Freddy grunted. Bonnie, who knew him better than Ana, knew that particular tone didn’t mean agreement.

“Good,” said Ana and left.

The next set started. Freddy played along with the rest of them, but only until Ana was once again on the roof and hard at work. Then he climbed down from the stage and had a look for himself. He was gone a long time, but he must have agreed with Ana’s ultimate assessment because when he did come back, he got onstage and rejoined the show. All the rest of that day, he patrolled between sets—as Ana had said, keeping an eye out—but without breaking character.

And Ana wasn’t there to see how well Freddy could play the part of an animatronic anyway. With company so close, she was even quieter than before, but she must have found plenty to do in spite of her restrictions because she didn’t come down again until Bonnie powered down for closing. She still didn’t come inside, though. She banged around in the storeroom for a while and then nothing.

After only a few minutes of silence and stillness, Freddy woke himself up and went out to see what she was doing. Leaving Bonnie and Chica to wait it out, of course, because Freddy was a jerk.

So Bonnie waited.

At ten, Bonnie finally opened his eyes. He switched them on out of habit, then switched them off again. He didn’t really need their light yet. He might not need them at all tonight. Even though it was almost an hour after sundown, it still wasn’t full dark inside the roofless restaurant. The sky beyond Ana’s orderly grid of beams and the hectic metal coils of the crawlway was a deep jewel-blue smudged with traces of silver where the wind pushed clouds along. In another hour, if it stayed relatively clear, there would be stars. Another hour after that, and the moon would start its slow flyby. Plenty of light to find his way around a building he’d lived in this long. Certainly enough to see Ana not sitting over on the edge of her table waiting for him to wake up.

He went to look for her, starting with the store room, since that was where he’d last heard her moving around, and sure enough, while still making his way across the kitchen, he heard the low murmur of her voice out on the loading dock, answered by one of Freddy’s growling grunts. Bonnie walked a little faster, switching his eyes on just to make sure the way through the store room was clear, and instantly let out a startled spat of static as his eyelight reflected off a squat metal body and tall, hooked tail—a giant scorpion, lifeless but no less lethal, just waiting to strike. Fear—stupid, senseless, human instinct—fired through his circuits, but it wasn’t the fear of the unknown. 

He knew what it was. He knew _whose_ it was. It was the thing their creator had started out calling a freestanding Closian manipulator with wireless computer-aided controller back when his voice had still been that of a boy’s, high and cracking, desperately seeking validation through vocabulary. But he’d grown out of that, as boys usually do, and the name had changed over the years, relaxing as his narrow frame had filled out and his high voice deepened, until it was just ‘the scoop’.

His scoop.

Here.

“Holy sh-sh-sh—SURE IS A GREAT DAY FOR PIZZA!” he blurted, stumbling back out of the storeroom and banging into the oven. “What-t-t is that-t-t-t—” 

_What is that doing here_? was what he was trying to say, but he got hung up on the t’s and by the time he’d broken out of the loop and could try again, Ana was already coming to get him, a little sunburned and a lot sweaty but smiling as she said, “Calm your tits, my man. It’s fine.”

Fine? Bonnie looked at the thing, and then at Ana, now with Freddy looming over her shoulder with a quizzical frown, like he, too, thought it was nothing. 

“It’s called a pneumatic arm,” she was saying. “It’s for lifting. See that claw?”

“Yeah,” said Bonnie. And the last time he’d seen it—or one like it, anyway—it had been ripping his skin off while his head was clamped to the work-table, peeling him like a plastic banana, a thousand errors and exceptions going off at once, becoming pain, the only kind of pain Bonnie really knew.

“I use that wireless pad there to control it and I can make it grab stuff and move it around for me. I just got it. Sweet, huh?”

“Not the word-d-d I’d use,” said Bonnie, trying to ease past the thing without actually touching it. He couldn’t do it. There was more equipment, things like tables stacked on top of each other and fastened together, filling up all the space she’d emptied of lumber and then some. It all looked new. The metal parts were shiny, unrusted. The plastic was clean, with a few fresh scuffmarks and dusty bootprints to show where she’d apparently been climbing on it. “What-t-t is all this?” 

“Yeah, sorry, it’s kind of everywhere, isn’t it? Can you get through?” she asked, putting out her hand like that was any kind of a help.

He took it anyway. Damned if he’d pass up the chance to hold her hand.

“Well, that’s scaffolding,” she was saying, pointing at the table-things. “Think of it as kind of a big ladder. I wouldn’t bring it in except that leaving it up against an abandoned building on the literal edge of nowhere is a giant invitation for assholes to climb it, whereupon they either see all the work I’ve done and realize someone’s here or they don’t see it and fall straight through to crack their fool heads open. So yeah, I want to keep it out of sight.”

“Good call.”

“Behind that, we got a solar panel, which I’ll probably take back to my place next time I go, since someone took off with your invertor and it’s useless without one. And all that shit against the wall is for the underlayment. Felt and tar and decking and all that good stuff. I only got half the vent-work done, unfortunately, but all the beams are up, so I’m not that far behind. I can make it up tomorrow. You good?”

“Yeah, I got it from here.” Bonnie stepped out onto the dock beside Freddy, who gave him a little more room as he turned his attention back out into the desert. There was a fire out there, a big one, to judge by the distance.

“Yup, they’re still there,” said Ana, leaning on the rails and raising the binoculars back to her eyes. “No cooler and no tents…but they got a dead tree and someone had a lighter, so they’re settled in and watching the pretty, pretty fire. That’s fine as far as it goes, but I don’t know…I keep thinking I might grab something out of my party stash and head down there. You know, kind of passively-aggressively let them know someone’s watching, but if I roust them, they could just as easily come here as drive out to the old base. So, yeah. I better just leave them alone. They probably won’t get rowdy if I don’t give them a reason to puff up.” 

When she lowered the binoculars, Freddy put out his hand. She gave him a look, but passed them and watched with a tired smile as he adjusted them to his wide-set eyes and looked for himself. 

“What do you think?” she prompted.

Freddy grunted thoughtfully and said, “THEY’RE. YOUNG.”

“Yup. Old enough to drive, not old enough to drink. They’re drinking anyway,” she remarked, taking the binoculars as Freddy handed them back and offering them to Bonnie. As he fit them curiously to his cameras and saw the distant glow of fire leap huge and sprout people sitting around it, Ana went on to say, “But they’re being pretty chill about it. They’re just having a Boy’s Night Paintball Party because they had the paintballs and don’t have money for fireworks, is my guess.”

“GOOD. GUESS,” Freddy said. 

“Which is still a concern, because this place is prime paintball real estate. Even if they aren’t tearing the place up, I don’t want ‘em in here. Sorry, Freddy. I know you put on a hell of a show, but I am breaking pretty much all the laws except those of nature and gravity and until I’m out of here, I don’t want anyone else coming in. God, I’m tired,” she muttered, taking the binoculars from Bonnie and wincing when she put them to her swollen eye.

“GO. TO. SLEEP,” said Freddy.

“Not until I know they’re gone.”

“I’LL. WATCH. THEM.”

She shook her head, but then did seem to consider it, looking up at him from the corner of her eye. “Promise you’ll come get me if they come up here?”

Freddy shrugged one shoulder. “SURE.”

She thought it over some more, then straightened up and offered the binoculars. “Okay. I’m trusting you. If I get raped and murdered in my sleep and this whole building burns down, you and I are going to have a long talk.”

Freddy sent her off with a grunt and a wave and went back to watching the fire in the distance.

Bonnie followed Ana back through the store room, suppressing a shiver when the scoop unavoidably scraped against his arm squeezing past it. But in the kitchen, Ana took the long way around the oven, stopping by the cupboard where she kept her vitamins and other bottles. Bonnie waited, unsure where to look or what he was supposed to say as she opened a zippered baggie and rolled herself a joint.

“I’m just going to say hi to Foxy,” she said, tucking it behind her ear and moving next to the cooler for a bottle of water and a bottle of beer. “Haven’t seen him in a while. Want to come?”

“Um…”

She waited, smiling at him with eyes that knew the honest answer had the wrong reason and the right answer was a lie.

“Me and Chica will p-pr-probably go to the arcade then,” he said finally. “She said-d-d you left some of the g-g-games, right?”

“Anything to keep her from playing castanets with the pizza trays in the middle of the night.”

“If you g-g-guys want to meet us there, we can play some g-g-games.” There. Now Foxy could be the childish one for a change. “If you t-t-two want to stay in, that’s c-c—COOL JAMS—cool, too. As long as I get-t-t to tuck you in.”

She didn’t answer, but she came back to him and pressed her lips to his muzzle. “You,” she said and kissed him again. “Are the only man who ever has—” Kiss. “—or ever will—” Kiss. “—tuck me in.” One more kiss, a real one, filling up long-gone senses with feelings he couldn’t feel and then walking away while he stood, his mouth tingling and battery bleeding, saying, “See you in bit, my man.”

After a while—how long, he had no idea—Chica pushed the plastic sheets at the other end of the kitchen apart and looked in at him. “DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?” she asked shyly.

“Yeah, just…g-g-give me a minute,” said Bonnie.

Chica dropped her gaze, nodding, and wandered away into the dark.

Alone, Bonnie tried to hold on to those phantom sensations, but the moment was broken and the kiss was lost. “Damn it.”

“YOU. SHOULD. GO,” Freddy said from the loading dock. “I. THINK. CHICA’S. LONELY. YOU. USED. TO. SPEND. MORE. TIME. WITH. HER.”

“Then you should-d-d go,” Bonnie countered, raking a hand over the top of his head in front of his ears in a restless scratching gesture no one had programmed into him and which he could never quite lose. “You know how long-ong-ong it’s been since you’ve spent-t-t—ALL YOUR TOKENS IN THE ARCADE—any time at all with any one of us?”

“A. LONG. TIME,” Freddy agreed. “BUT. I. SAID. I’D. KEEP. WATCH.” 

Bonnie took a step toward the hall, but turned around and shuffled back as far as the store room doorway. No further. He’d touched the damn scoop twice already and that was twice too many. From here, he could just see Freddy’s side, one arm, one leg, and one ear aimed outward. His arm was bent, holding the binoculars. If Ana thought she was getting those back in a hurry, she probably had a shock coming.

“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Freddy asked without turning.

“I guess so. It’s this thing-ing-ing,” he decided, knocking on the scoop’s hooked head. Even the sound of it getting hit was unpleasant. “I thought-t-t it was the scoop.”

“IT’S. TOO. SMALL.” Freddy glanced back at it and grunted. “AND. THE. WRONG. COLOR.”

It looked plenty big to Bonnie and he had a feeling it would look even bigger if he were clamped in place and that claw coming at him, but he didn’t say so. He also had a faint memory of the man who’d created them painting the scoop, that it had in fact been some dark greenish color once upon a time, but he didn’t say that either. Foxy was the only one of them with the software to save memories to a file and recall them absolutely; Bonnie’s own memories were all too mortal and this one was decades old. If Freddy said it was a different color, it probably was.

Still. Faulty as Bonnie knew his memory was, this thing looked just like the fucking scoop he remembered. This thing…and now anyone could get one. Like Ana’s touch-screen tablet or the tiny toy of a phone she carried in her pocket or God knew what else.

“Is this what-t-t you thought the future would look like?” Bonnie asked out of nowhere, surprising even himself.

“WHAT?”

“The future. You know. B-B-Back when we were new. It’s been, what? The sign in the lobby said _Fifty Years With Freddy Fazbear_ and I sure believe it. I feel it.”

Freddy grunted sympathetically.

“And I can remember thinking-ing-ing, you know, ‘Wow! The year 2000!’ like it was something out-t-t of the movies, something I couldn’t e-e-e— _eeeeeee_ —” He gave his speaker a thump, cleared it with static and went on, “—even imagine living to see,” without really being aware of the interruption. “I don’t know. I j-j-just thought it would look different. Flying c-c-cars and building-ing-ings shaped like melted p-p-popsicles. I don’t know. Nothing’s changed-d-d but the way they talk and dress.”

Freddy grunted and turned his head enough to run a cursory eye over the scoop…the pneumatic arm. “IT’S. PROBABLY. CHANGED. MORE. THAN. WE. KNOW. IT’S. JUST. THAT. WE. WERE. LIVING. WITH. HIM. AND. HE. WAS. ALWAYS. LIVING. IN. THE.” He clicked a few times, shrugged and said, “IT. JUST. TOOK. FIFTY. YEARS. FOR. THE. WORLD. TO. CATCH. UP. TO. HIM.”

Without thinking, Bonnie said, “You want to hear something funny?” and instantly wished he could take it back, but Freddy said, “SURE,” so he couldn’t. He tried anyway. “I mean, it’s not funny-ny-ny, exactly. It’s not a joke. You know what, it’s nothing-ing,” he said, walking away. “Forget it.”

“WHAT IS IT, BONNIE?”

After a little fidgeting and without turning back—he didn’t want to have to look at Freddy when he said this, or see Freddy looking at him—Bonnie lowered his ears and said, “I miss him sometimes. Not _him_ …not that there’s much d-d-d—DIFFERENCES MAKE US SPECIAL!—difference, I guess. I mean, they were friends, but he didn’t know what _he_ was d-d-doing…until he did. I mean…I don’t know what-t-t I mean.”

“I. DO.” The wind blew in through the open roof and swept the confession away. In the distance, a car’s engine started up, then another, and another. On the loading dock, Freddy sighed and said, “I. MISS. HIM. TOO.”

“Really?”

“LATELY. MORE. THAN. I. USED. TO.” The cars were leaving, driving right past the access road one by one, and when the last of them was gone, Freddy came in. The loading dock door rattled down and was secured with the old table leg and a few careful taps from an even older paw. “AN-N-A,” he said, then clicked to himself and settled on, “REWINDS. ME. OF. HIM. I DON’T KNOW. MAYBE. ANY. ONE. WOULD. IF. THEY. TALKED. TO. US. LIKE. SHE. DOES.” He was quiet a moment. “HE. USED. TO. TALK. TO. ME. LIKE. THAT.”

“Heh.” Bonnie dredged up a smile from somewhere sad inside him. “You always were Dad’s favorite.”

“I KNOW.” Freddy made his way across the cluttered store room, putting a hand easily on the pneumatic arm’s head to push it aside when he passed it, and then putting that same hand on Bonnie’s shoulder in a companionable pat as he passed him, too. “IT’S. OKAY. TO. MISS. HIM. WE. WERE. MADE. FOR. A. GOOD. REASON. NO. MATTER. HOW. WE. WERE. USED. IT’S. OKAY. TO. REMEMBER. THE. GOOD. TIMES.” 

Bonnie followed him out of the kitchen and into the East Hall. “You think-k-k he’s still alive?”

“I DON’T KNOW. HE. DIDN’T. LOOK. GOOD. THE. LAST. TIME. AND. THAT. WAS. YEARS. AGO.”

“I keep thinking-ing-ing, if he was alive, he’d come. Not to t-t-take us home, but just to look around-d-d— _THE MULBERRY BUSH_! To check on things. On us. D-D-Don’t you think?”

Freddy grunted and kept walking.

“I know he won’t take us home again,” Bonnie admitted. It hurt. “I know that-t-t. He needs us to k-k-keep watch, right?”

Freddy glanced at him, but didn’t answer.

“Because he’s old-d-d and…and people die, but we d-d-don’t. I know why he left us here, I just…sometimes I wish we c-c-could just go home.”

“WE. ARE. HOME. BONNIE.”

There really wasn’t anything more to say that didn’t hurt, so Bonnie said what hurt the most, what he’d never in his life said out loud or even really put into words in his own head: “Do you think-k-k he ever loved us?”

“YES.”

He wasn’t sure what answer he’d been expecting, but if he’d had the time to prepare a list of possibilities, that would have been at the bottom, if he thought to include it at all. Bonnie’s feet rooted in shock, but Freddy just kept walking. “You c-c-can’t mean that,” he said.

Freddy didn’t answer.

“If he loves us, why d-d-doesn’t he want to see us?”

“LOVED.”

“What?”

“I. SAID. I. THINK. HE. LOVED. US,” said Freddy. He reached the crossroads where the fake pig stood and waved forever under the signpost directing guests to one of the many fun event rooms in the restaurant that bore his name, and there, Freddy finally turned around and faced Bonnie. “HE. STOPPED,” he said. “HE. FOUND. OUT. WHAT. WE. REALLY. ARE. AND. HE. STOPPED.”

He didn’t go on to say what that meant. He didn’t so much as say Ana’s name. He didn’t have to.

They looked at each other beneath an open roof, a starry sky. Eventually, Freddy turned around again and kept walking, on patrol. Bonnie went to the arcade to play skee-ball with Chica and wait for Ana.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, loyal readers! 
> 
> I feel like I ought to apologize for another chapter where the story progression takes a back seat to snuggle-time, but I have an excuse. Initially, this was but the first scene in a longer chapter...a _much_ longer chapter. Like 20 pages longer. And as I was editing, I said to myself, "Self," I said, "You've got to trim this down." So rather than cut this scene out and delete it (it may not progress the plot, but I still like it and feel it adds to the development of Ana's relationship with Bonnie, as well as giving us glimpses into both their characters), I just made it its own chapter. Next week, things will pick up again, I promise. In fact, this may well be the last real break Ana catches before...well, no spoilers, so just take my word for it: Ana doesn't get a lot of quiet time.
> 
> See you next week!  
> R. Lee Smith

# CHAPTER NINE

After a full day’s work and with one of Rider’s few remaining Black Diamonds swimming through her bloodstream, Ana expected to pass out as soon as her head hit the pillow of her day pack. She left Pirate Cove relatively early, yawned all the way down the hall, crawled under her table, collapsed half-dressed on her air mattress, and immediately woke up. Her body was still exhausted, heavy and aching with overwork, but her brain would not switch off. Again and again, she built the roof, energized by the acquisition of a pneumatic arm and eager to work with it again. In a few months, she was sure it would become just another tool to her, no different from her tablet, but tonight, it was still amazing to think she had one.

At length, Ana gave up even pretending to sleep and let her eyes open. She stared into the darkness, listening to the faint tick and whirr of servos in the room beyond her curtained table—Bonnie, playing his guitar. After a moment, she rolled over and peeked beneath the curtain. The wispy clouds that had cut up the sky by day had thickened considerably, forming silver swirls across the night sky where a nearly full moon shone a spotlight on the stage of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. Bonnie, alone there, leaned up against the side wall with one foot on the floor, playing his stringless guitar, said with one picture what a thousand words could never say about the toys that are left behind when the kids grow up.

She was sure she didn’t make any noise and Bonnie never looked up from what his fingers were doing on the neck of the guitar, but he said, “Can’t sleep, huh?”

“How’d you know? You got cameras on the back of your head?”

“Nope, but I got-t-t ears.” 

“You can hear me looking at you?”

“Nope.” He glanced at her long enough to give her a quick, playful smile. “I c-c-can hear you’re not snoring.”

Ana laughed. “Yeah, Rider says I go like a chainsaw.”

“Aww, it’s not that b-b-bad. It’s a cute little snore.” He stopped playing and shifted around on the stage to better face her. “Something-ing-ing on your mind?”

“Not really.” Ana boosted herself up on her hands to better slide off the air mattress and slither out from under the table. She sat up against the wall instead, drawing up her bare legs and pulling her t-shirt over her knees. “Just restless, I guess.”

“You cold?” he asked, tipping his ears forward.

“A little. It’s still a million degrees during the day, but it’s gotten…I wouldn’t say cold, but definitely nippy at night. Wind’s changed. New front moving in,” she said, tipping her head back and sniffing at the breeze that blew in past the ductwork. “Smells like it might rain.” 

“Oh yeah?” He looked up, his ears shifting to an interested angle. “What d-d-does rain smell like?”

“After it’s done falling, it smells great. Like…clean pavement and pines. And the quarry. Everything smells like the quarry in this town. But right now, it just smells like a roof I don’t have on yet.”

“It might-t-t hold off, you never know.” His fingers began to move again. _Tick-tick-whirr, tick-whirr_. “What’ll you d-d-do if it rains?”

“Get wet. I mean, if it wants to go balls-out thunder and lightning, I’ll hole up, but otherwise, I’ll just keep working. I won’t melt.”

Ana watched him play for a while, comfortably hypnotized by the movements of his fingers on the stringless guitar. She didn’t know music well enough to ‘hear’ what she could see him do, but she wished she could. Bonnie’s pumped up versions were the nursery rhymes she knew best, even after all these years. She wanted to hear them again.

“Which one is that?” she asked at last.

Bonnie played on, but twitched an ear in her direction. “Mm?”

“What song is that?”

He shook his head, fingers slowing now, smoothing out a complicated melody only he could hear. “You d-d-don’t know it. It’s new.”

“New?” Ana thought that over and, smiling, asked, “What kind of pizza do you think I like?”

He stopped playing and looked at her. “Wow, you’re kind-d-d of full of yourself, aren’t you?”

“You know I’m not wrong.”

“I didn’t say you were wrong-ong-ong, I said you were full of yourself.”

“A new song needs a new reason to write it,” she pointed out. “I’m the only new thing here. So. What kind of pizza do you think best encapsulates my personality?”

He snorted through his speaker and returned his attention to his guitar. “Whatever it is, it’s got-t-t extra sauce, that’s for sure.”

She laughed and he laughed with her.

“But you are, right?” she pressed. “You’re writing me a song?”

He ducked his head slightly, ears forward and shoulders hunched. “Well…yeah.”

“Can I hear it?”

“When it’s d-d-done. Maybe.”

“Good. I used to love listening to you play.”

“Used to, huh?”

“No offense, but everything you play now kind of sounds the same.”

Bonnie lifted his hand and rapidly flexed the fingers to make the servos whine in agreement, then resumed strumming.

Ana watched, smiling, and suddenly said, “Of all the songs I’ve heard you play, you know the one I love the most?”

“ _Everybunny Needs Somebunny_?”

“Nope.”

“ _If You’ll Be My Man_?”

“Never actually heard you play that, just sing it.”

“Good p-p-point.” He glanced up curiously, not curious enough to stop playing. “I d-d-don’t know. _The Birthday Bunny Hop_?”

“God, no.”

“I give up. Which one? Better not-t-t be _Chica’s Pizza Song_ either, or I swear to God, I’ll sing-ing-ing it.”

Ana smiled and pushed herself up. She went to him, putting a little extra swing in it as he watched her come. Pulling the guitar from his unresisting hands, she set it aside and took its place on his lap. She leaned into him, arching her neck so she could nibble at the underside of his jaw. “The one you play,” she said, slipping her wrist into his right hand and placing his left on her stomach, “when you play me.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding understandably surprised. His fingers tightened on her wrist and quickly opened again; the hand at her stomach lifted entirely away, awkwardly splayed and hovering. He shifted, bumping her forward and immediately leaning back with a muttered apology, giving her three or four good conks on the head with his chin as he fidgeted around before giving up with a nervous little laugh and saying, “Sorry, I d-d-don’t know…I mean, are you c-c-c-comfortable or…? What are we doing-ing-ing here?”

“You’re overthinking, my man,” she told him, wiggling back into position and pulling his strumming hand firmly against her body. “Just play.”

His ears broadcast his uncertainty, but he adjusted his arms around her so they were less an embrace and more like he was holding his guitar. He strummed, his thumb snagging at her shirt, stopping well above the hemline. “Like this?” he asked.

“Still overthinking,” she said, smiling. “Like music. I’m your song, Bonnie. Play me.”

Something in his eyes changed, although he didn’t do anything but look at her for a long time. Then his fingers moved along her wrist and pressed down. He began to play, picking out notes on strings that weren’t there, but which Ana felt thrum in response all the same. Her arm was his fretboard, her body his instrument, and it was fun at first, ticklish and strange. But the game, if it ever was one, died and the song went on.

Ana’s teasing smile slipped away as she realized there was music here. She could see it in his eyes, feel it through his hands. Her name was in the forceful way he gripped her arm, pressing power chords into her flesh for his tumbling fingers to release on some other level. It was not a love song the way love songs are supposed to be played. It wasn’t sad or sweet or slow. If she could hear it, it would be hard on the ear, a complicated melody folding around an unchanging baseline, but it was music. Everything she didn’t know she was, was in this song, but only Bonnie could hear it.

It went on forever and not long enough—three minutes, give or take—and when he had set the last note vibrating in her strings and lifted his hand away, Ana turned in rhythm with him, just like it was an act they’d choreographed and rehearsed, now straddling him, his arms around her waist, hers around his neck, her mouth on his in a fierce kiss he returned just as passionately. If they made a silly picture, she was unaware of it. She felt his hands, heard his servos, smelled his smell, and that was all the world she knew and as much as she cared to know.

His hand snagged her shirt again. He muttered, trying to shake it off and succeeding only in yanking at her. The friction of her shirt being pulled taut against her in little fits and starts was not at all unpleasant. 

“Want me to get that?” she murmured without breaking the kiss.

“Sorry. Yes, p-p-please. Sorry.”

“Mm-hmm.” Ana felt her way along his arm to his hand and found where her shirt was pinched between his finger-joints. She freed him and leaned back just far enough and long enough to pull her shirt over her head and toss it aside. “How’s that?”

“Oh,” said Bonnie, wide-eyed. “Oh wow. Okay. That-t-t is so not what-t-t I was expecting-ing-ing, but I am completely ok-k-kay with it.”

She kissed him again, starting at the middle of his chest and making her way to his shoulder, then up his neck, experiencing all the different textures of his body—the fibracene flocking soft where it was still thick, scratchy where it had begun to break down, worn away to hard plastic in places, and even that cracked through to coarse padding and even bare metal. She didn’t hurry. For the first time in her life, she wanted to savor this part.

“An-n-na?”

“Mm-hm.”

“I, um…God, I am so sorry-ry-ry to k-k-keep interrupting when you’ve got a rhythm going-ing-ing, but what do I do?”

“Stop apologizing.”

“Okay, right-t-t. No apologies. Got it. Sorry. What c-c-comes after that?”

“I do, with any luck.” She rose up on her knees, found his hands and placed them firmly on her hips so he could feel how she moved them. “Maybe even twice. I’m feeling lucky tonight.”

His gaze dropped. He stared raptly at his hands, then suddenly looked at her and said, talking fast but with deep feeling, “I just want-t-t you to know that I have nothing but re-re—REFLEXIVE SOMATIC AND VISCERAL MOTOR ACTIVITIES. Damn it. Respect! Nothing but-t-t respect for you and you have amazing-ing-ing eyes and—”

Ana sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. “Bonnie.”

“—and also this is the g-g-gr—GREAT JOB! No! The g-g-greatest night of my life except maybe-be-be for the one when I learned to play the g-g-guitar, which by the w-w-w—WAY TO GO! God _damn_ it! Not _now_! Which, by the way I will never d-d-do again without thinking-ing-ing of you, and no matter what-t-t happens next or how, um, d-d-disappointing-ing-ing it may be—”

“Bonnie!” she groaned.

“I’m not saying-ing-ing it _will_ be,” he hastened to assure her, “just that-t-t, you know, this is way outside my original intended-d-d use and I do not have the hard-d-d-ware for it, so the odds of d-d-disappointment are pretty-ty-ty damn high, and I want-t-t to say first that this part-t-t was awesome, so okay.” He shivered once, pulled in a deep breath, then pushed his ears forward in a high V of determination. “Okay, let’s—LET’S ROCK! No, d-d-d-damn it! That’s not what I meant!”

“Bonnie.” She cupped his face between her hands to shut him up and smiled into his eyes. “I know what you mean. However, ‘let’s rock’ is perfectly appropriate in this situation.”

“Okay, just let me…I mean....” His hands twitched. “Is it okay if I t-t-touch you?”

“Anywhere you want,” she promised, kissing him.

“But you’ll tell me—” He caught her arms and pushed her carefully back, his ears low. “You’ll tell me if it’s not-t-t, right?”

“Fine,” she said. “What do you want to do? Get my written consent every time you put your hands on me?”

“Well, no,” he said, looking taken aback. “Not in writing-ing-ing, but…if that’s how it’s d-d-done these days…”

“Wow.” Ana covered her face briefly, smiling and shaking her head. “Look, Bon, for real now. The more you remind me you’re an animatronic, the weirder this is going to get.”

His ears lowered. “I know,” he said, like he really did know and he felt ways about it that Ana could not begin to understand. “But I am and…I d-d-don’t know what to do about that. All I know is, I-I-I—LOVE PLAYING OUTSIDE WHEN THE WEATHER IS WARM—damn it. Sorry. I d-d-don’t know why I can’t just-t-t say it.”

“I know,” she said, stroking his twitching shoulder. “I have trouble with that one, too.”

“All I’m trying-ing-ing to say is, I know what I am and I know what I d-d-don’t want to be. And I don’t want to be the last number on the l-l-l—LIMBIC EMULATOR SEEMS TO BE AMELIORATING THE BIOCHEMICAL DERANGEMENTS INDUCED BY CEREBRAL ISCHEMIA. Holy shit, that’s just-t-t getting worse and worse,” he said, blinking, then frowned. “I meant the last number on the list of g-g-guys that hurt you.”

Once again, she was struck by his eyes, eyes she had pulled out of Brewster’s head before installing in Bonnie’s, eyes that were plastic and wires and cameras and nothing more. She could see herself in his eyes and, more than that, she could look through that reflection and see him.

He meant what he said. Regardless of who’d said it first or why he’d decided to incorporate it into his programming, he understood it and he meant it now. She did not completely lose sight of reality; he could not feel as humans feel, but hey…who said human feelings were so damn great anyway? 

Machines. Their needs were simple and predictable. Their flaws, repairable. And their hearts, more honest than any man’s.

“You’d never hurt me,” said Ana. She took his hands—hands that could crush her bones as easily as making a fist—and put them on her body. She leaned back, wordlessly inviting him to explore what he would and, not unexpectedly, he touched her braid first. His fingers traveled, knot by knot, down to her hips, then slipped off onto her bare skin. He touched her scars, looked at her.

“Still ok-k-kay?” he asked, fingers twitching. No, not twitching, not the way they did when he was glitching out. Just restless, as he was with his guitar, ready to play.

“No,” she admitted and forced a smile. “Make it okay.”

She kissed him. He put his arms around her, one hand high between her shoulder-blades, where everything was all right, and the other moving slow up and down along her spine, playing that music only he could hear, playing it on her scars.

Plastic crinkled. Ana jerked back at once, inadvertently scraping her lips on Bonnie’s muzzle as she spun herself around and hid her back against his side. “Get out of here!” she yelled, heat in her face and her stomach in knots where just a second ago there had been nothing but lazily unspooling warmth.

“WHAT? OH. FOR.” Stopping short in the kitchen doorway, Freddy clapped a hand to his muzzle briefly before turning on his angry eyes and booming, “PUT. YOUR. CLOSED. ON. AND. GET. OFF. THE. STAGE.”

“We’ve been over this,” said Ana, putting an arm defiantly around Bonnie’s neck. “I’m not on the stage. I’m on Bonnie. And if he wants me to get off, believe me, he doesn’t need your help.”

Freddy rolled his eyes, then glared at Bonnie. “I’VE. BEEN. VERY. PATIENT. HERE. I’M. NOT. GOING. TO. TELL. YOU. NO. JUST. KEEP. IT. OUT. OF. THE. DINING. ROOM.”

“I wanted a room with a door on it,” Ana reminded him.

Freddy did not look at her. “ANY. ONE,” he said, “COULD. WALK. IN.” 

“Yeah, well, if anyone is so damn mortified to be seeing this, anyone can turn his big bear ass around and walk right back out.” 

But Bonnie’s ears lowered, then his eyes. His hand moved slightly on Ana’s hip, neither a pat nor a caress, but some wistful unfinished gesture. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Ana tipped her head back with a groan of frustration, but it was the only one and there was more humor in it than real annoyance. Her next breath was a sigh and the one after that was even a laugh. 

“It’s okay,” she said and she meant it. The ‘anyone’ in Freddy’s hypothetical scenario was Chica. Back when Ana was first moving herself in, Bonnie had admitted the two of them had ‘tried,’ whatever that meant. And although they both seemed to have moved on, nothing stirred up old drama like walking into the dining room to ask your ex if he wanted to play some skee-ball only to find him getting a lap-dance from his new girl, who you were trying to be friends with. That was not a situation Ana wanted any part of, even in play.

Which was not to say she was glad they’d been interrupted.

Scowling, Ana got up and reclaimed her shirt, making sure she never turned her back on Freddy. “Way to ruin the mood, bear,” she groused, slapping the plaster dust and insulation fluff off it before yanking it on.

“I’VE. TOLD. YOU. NOT. TO. CALL. ME. THAT.”

“Fine. Way to ruin the mood, you high-hatted judgmental jerk-knob!”

Freddy’s grunt was very nearly a laugh. He glanced up as he adjusted his ‘high’ hat, then fixed her with a narrow side-eye and said, “THAT’S. BETTER.”

“Prude,” declared Ana and swept grandly out through the plastic into the kitchen. She started for the cupboard, changed her mind, took a bottle of water from the cooler and went out onto the loading dock. 

The sky was just as cloudy, the moon no brighter and the breeze no sweeter for being on the other side of the restaurant’s walls, but she was glad she’d come outside anyway. It was the same view she’d had all day, for weeks now, months if she counted the view from Aunt Easter’s house, and yet it was new again by night. The parking lot stretched out before her, a light dusting of sand giving the illusion of a wet shine to its dry, cracked surface, so that it resembled a black river endlessly flowing by. Beyond the line of dead trees that marked the edge of the bluff, the desert went on for miles, red rock and hardpan softened and silvered. The distant mountains were little more than a shadow along the horizon, visible more as an absence of stars than anything else, but the foothills leading up the side of Coldslip were closer. At night, she couldn’t see the dead grey soil through the sparse pines; its bluish silhouette bristled with pale trees, a fairy-forest that could only be reached by moonlight.

It looked so magical, peaceful as a painting, but riotous with hidden life. Even now Ana could hear insects shrilling and distant coyotes squabbling as they dug for lizards and chased after scrawny desert hares. Tranquil as it seemed, the night had a pulse and it was racing. Its thousand voices were strained with terror and with lust. The wind blew, cold and sour and steady as the breath of any living thing.

“I missed this place,” Ana said as footsteps came carefully through the cluttered store-room. “Can you believe it? I missed this awful place. It’s beautiful, sometimes. The way a graveyard can be beautiful. Or a wildfire. I don’t mean that in a morbid way. I mean, if you don’t think about what it means or what it does, you can love it…just for what it is. You know?” Tearing her gaze off the horizon, she looked back just as Bonnie ducked under the low loading dock door and straightened up again.

The moon worked its fairy magic on him, filling in his thinning fur and losing the many cracks in his casing in shadows. Even the glint of moonlight on his exposed bones were weirdly glamourized, like silver threads in a fine coat. 

“And I missed you, too,” she said, reaching up to touch his cracked face. “I never knew how much until I finally met you.”

He smiled in his rigid way and hummed at her, just a few notes. Mia Rose. _I never knew how dead I was ‘til your touch brought me to life_ … Then his expression sobered and he said, “You mad-d-d at Freddy?”

“No.” She rolled her eyes and smiled to prove it. “I get tired of his babysitter act, but I’ve got to admit, I could have picked a more romantic venue than center stage of the dining room.”

“Stage right,” Bonnie corrected. His ears lowered slightly. “And yeah, I hear you. Not-t-t that it mattered at the t-t-t—TIME TO ROCK!”

“No, it sure didn’t. In the heat of the moment, I would have cheerfully thrown you down and rocked your world even if the place was open and full of screaming kids. I have never been so ready.”

“Heh. Awesome.”

“And…And no offense, because I know we could just find another room and get right back into it, but it’d feel too much like I was doing it just to spite Freddy. And I don’t…I don’t want to do anything with you out of spite. Not even a little bit.”

“Good,” he said without hesitation.

“You’re not upset?”

“Hey, I d-d-don’t want to know what the Freddy’s-not-the-boss-of-me kiss feels like. I’d rather have the g-g-goodbye kiss than that one.” His ears came up again, one of them folding forward in careless good humor, throwing a black stripe of shadow across his face. “And you know, not that I c-c-can give you satin sheets and rose petals, but even I ought to t-t-try to do better than the dining room. Stage _right_.”

“Smart ass. Wait, what’s that?” She lifted herself up on her tiptoes, squinting, searching first one eye as deep as it went and then the other. “Hold still.”

He blinked and tipped his head back a little. “What-t-t?”

“No, no. Let me see. Come closer.”

Bonnie’s ear twitched, but he leaned closer, just a fraction of an inch at a time, ticking like the second-hand of a stopwatch, until their faces were almost touching. “What?” he said again, softly. “What are you looking-ing-ing at?”

“I don’t know,” she said, feigning confusion and curiosity. “I thought that was our it’s-really-nice-to-see-you look. I can’t be sure, though. I’ve never seen it without the kiss.” She tipped her chin up invitingly, sliding her hands behind his neck. “Is it?”

“No.”

Now she blinked and drew back. “No?”

“No.” His hands rose, bumped her thigh, and came to cautious rest on her waist. “It’s the one without a name. The one…just for you and me.”

“Are you sure? Even without the kiss?” Again, she tipped her chin up.

“I’m sure, but…the kiss is nice.” His fan revved. His left ear and two fingers on his right hand twitched. “And I’d really-ly-ly like to kiss you. Ana?”

“Bonnie, you seriously don’t have to ask.”

“Yeah, I d-d-do.”

She couldn’t help rolling her eyes a little. “Rule number…?”

“My rule,” he said. “Just mine. B-B-Besides…I like asking.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because I l-l—LOVE PLAYING OUTSIDE WHEN THE—love it-t-t when you say yes.” He twitched again, his grip becoming a painful pinch, however briefly. “Ana?”

“Bonnie?”

“Can I k-k-kiss you?”

“Yes, you may,” she said gravely.

She kissed him, making thorough work of it, exploring every rigid plastic curve, amazed that it could feel so natural and alive.

“That’s the one,” Bonnie said when she finally finished. “Now one more.”

He cupped her chin in his good hand, the one that still had fuzzy plastic on the fingers, and held her still while he bumped his muzzle lightly against her mouth.

“Which one is that?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Goodnight-t-t,” he said, just as she’d expected. He released her and moved back, putting one hand on the loading dock door so it couldn’t drop on her if she bumped it going under. “Get some sleep-p-p, baby girl. That’ll g-g-give Freddy one less thing to complain about.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll add three more things to the list,” she said, but she said it smiling and went back inside. Once more, she crawled beneath the table and put herself to bed, listening to Bonnie’s footsteps as he returned to his place on the stage and picked up his guitar. He began to play and this time, when she heard the soft whirring of his servos, she closed her eyes and slept.


	10. Chapter 10

# CHAPTER TEN

The next day, fireworks went on sale. Sort of. The real ammunition couldn’t be legally sold until the 3rd, but the booths were open and that meant the first kids started trickling into the quarry around noon to throw poppers at lizards and each other. Ana kept working for a while, reminding herself it would get worse before it got better, and this was good practice. And so it was. Slouching along the beams behind the shielding half-wall that ringed in the roof soon became second-nature, so much that when she went down to double-check her figures, she didn’t immediately straighten up after ducking under the table for her tablet. It took Freddy asking if she was all right before she realized she was crouch-walking out of the room.

All afternoon, Ana worked and watched kids come and go down at the quarry. The younger ones were soon crowded out by bigger boys, who were themselves displaced by even bigger ones who drove themselves in cars and brought bottles they could drink empty and then blow up. When they ran out of fireworks, they leaned up against the rocks and drank, and God knew, they might be doing that all the rest of the day.

Ana did what she could, well aware that she had only today and tomorrow to finish framing, but the stillness of the desert carried the sounds of male laughter from a quarter-mile away too damn easily for her to risk real work. She holed herself up in the corner of the roof to watch them, but each flash of the sun on a bottle made her paranoid that one of them might spy a similar flash off the lenses of her binoculars and without them, she couldn’t see what they were doing well enough to justify the sunburn she was getting. Had she known who they were, she never would have left, sunburn or no, but the faces she saw through the army surplus binoculars were featureless and their voices were not distinct enough to let her hear them when they started talking about Freddy’s…and Ana herself…so she left them and went below.

She cleaned for a while, because there was always cleaning to do, but mid-afternoon found Ana in the shade in the security room, relaxing in her canvas camping chair with her legs kicked up on the desk and a penlight between her teeth like a cigar, taking Chica’s cupcake apart. She had shade to relax in because, like the parts room backstage, the manager’s office, the quiet room, Kiddie Cove and the freezer in the kitchen, the security office was its own self-contained metal box. Of course, after hours exposed to the unrelenting summer sun, the shade wasn’t terribly cool, but there was a nice breeze that gusted now and then to whisk the collecting heat away. She’d found an old-school rotary-blade desk fan while cleaning and if she ever got the wiring situation resolved, it would make a big difference, she was sure, but for now, it just sat on one corner of the desk with its cord dangling, standing guard over her half-eaten day-old Betty Burger and a couple empty water bottles. Every now and then, Ana would forget they were empty and reach for one, only to decide she wasn’t quite thirsty enough yet to get up and go all the way to the cooler in the kitchen for a full one. She just wanted to sit here in the quiet, cool off a little, and see what flavor of hellcake was hiding under this pink plastic frosting.

It wasn’t as simple as just taking out some screws. This deceptively toy-like little cupcake had been built like a damn Russian nesting doll. She had to get the bottom plate off to expose the battery case and the screws that fastened on the outer shell. Once the batteries were removed—plain AAs, surprisingly mainstream for a Fazbear animatronic—and the case cleaned of its corrosion, she slid the pleated-wrapper-shaped shell off the sides to expose a number of pressure plates and sensors nestled in a colorful thicket of wires against an inner shell. After sorting all that out and locating the next set of screws, Ana carefully pulled the inner shell away to see the cupcake’s actual mechanisms, no more complicated than those of any other talking, moving toy: a couple simple motors attached to the hinged place where the frosting-cap connected to the cake-base, a simple speakerbox that looked nothing like the one in Bonnie’s neck, and a solid mass of multi-colored wires in which computer chips and circuit boards were suspended like dead bugs in a funnel-web. But even this wasn’t the end. She followed one wire to another compartment and opened it up to discover the music box component, complete with the broken pins that she’d heard rattling around when she shook the cupcake. When she pulled the spindle out to fix it, she discovered yet another compartment tucked underneath and opened that to find a diminutive spool feeding a perforated ribbon of what she initially assumed were stickers up through a slot and out the cupcake’s mouth. She wasted several minutes trying to figure out how to open the mouth before giving up and simply taking the pins out of the hinges. Now she could finally locate the screws holding the frosting-cap on and remove them to see the mechanisms, wires and circuitry that operated the cameras behind those creepy humanoid eyes.

When she was done, she had pieces of cupcake laid out over every inch of the desktop, more wires and parts than she’d had to deal with in Bonnie’s whole head. However, her sense of accomplishment as she put it all back together was subdued at best. Some deductions were obvious, but she still couldn’t figure out what the cupcake did. Oh, sure, the eyes could blink and move within their sockets, and those cameras indicated it could respond to visual stimuli. The mouth could open and close to simulate talking. If the candle was wound, it played music and could perhaps sing along with itself. It could spit out stickers. Those pressure plates and sensors along its sides suggested it knew when it was being hugged, as opposed to being held, and perhaps also when it was being tipped upside-down. In other words, she saw a toy.

What exactly had she been expecting?

“Teeth,” she admitted as she began the tedious process of fitting all those tiny parts back together within the confines of the cupcake, layer by layer by layer. “Big, sharp retractable fangs. Hypodermic needle-teeth, maybe. Full of LSD and spider-venom. Can I help you?” she concluded without looking up.

On the other side of the security window, Freddy stood, silently watching her. He had made no sound creeping up on her. If it weren’t for the sunlight pouring down through the roofless top of the building into the hall, he would be all but invisible in the dark.

She thought he’d leave, now that he knew he’d been seen. Indeed, he started to turn away, but stopped and looked back at her. He pointed up. “I. THOUGHT. YOU. WERE. TAKING. THAT. DOWN.”

Ana knew what he was pointing at, although she couldn’t see it from inside the metal box that was the security office: the air-duct maze. It hadn’t just been over the dining room, as she had somehow known it wouldn’t be. No, it was the reason the rotten roof had held as long as it had, reaching from Kiddie Cove to the gymnasium and the party room to the security office, and there it was just going to have to stay.

“I’d love to,” Ana said now. “But you see all those metal columns poking up through the walls? You know, the ones holding up the building?”

“YES.”

“Those ducts are welded to them.”

Freddy grunted, looking up.

“So I can’t take them down. I’d have to cut them down. Which I could probably still do, since I have a pneumatic arm and some decent scaffolding. Probably, not definitely. I don’t know what that stuff is and beyond the fact that it feels really sturdy from the outside, I don’t know how much it weighs, but at a guess, I’d say it weighs a lot. More weight means cutting it apart in smaller segments, which in turn means more cutting, which in addition to meaning more juice for the torch also means more time, not just to do the cutting but to work the arm and move the scaffolding and so on and so on. Bottom line, I don’t have the time to deal with that mess now and once I get the roof on, it becomes ten thousand times more complicated to deal with it at all. So fuck it. It’s not hurting anyone, right?”

Freddy grunted again, his that-settles-that grunt, and turned around.

“It’s weird, though.”

Again he stopped and looked back. 

“More time, planning, effort and above all else, money went into that thing than anything else in this entire building, present company excepted. I’ve had three days to look at it, up close and personal, and I still cannot figure out what the hell it is or what it’s for. I’m a fuck-up in a lot of ways, as I’m sure you’ll agree,” she added lightly, fitting the inner shell of the cupcake over its interior mechanisms with a playful little slap and screwing it into place. “But when it comes to figuring out how things work or what things do, I’m the best there is, or at least, the best I’ve met. I may not always know what something’s called, but I can take it apart and—” She gestured at the cupcake with her screwdriver. “—put it back together again and make it work. But that thing? I don’t get it. More to the point, I can’t _see_ it. It’s a damn air duct. No moving parts, no circuitry, no functionality beyond the obvious. And yet, here I sit, absolutely fucking confounded. You cannot imagine how that feels. It’s like taming lions for a living only to be eaten alive by an anteater. You know?”

“YES.”

“Anteaters don’t even have _teeth_ , Freddy.”

“I KNOW.”

“It’s frustrating.”

“I. SEE. THAT.”

“So I can cover it up again, but it’s always going to be there and I’m always going to know it’s there. I can live with it, because I don’t have much of a choice, but I’m never going to like it. You know how that feels—” She looked up at him, still reassembling plates and hooking up wires, smiling. “—don’t you?”

He raised one eyebrow, just the one. “YOU. THINK. I. DON’T. HAVE. A. CHOICE.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Don’t you have a show to do?” she asked, returning her full attention to the cupcake.

He didn’t answer, but he did walk away, heading back toward the dining room. Once he was out of her sight, he passed from her mind as well, and all Ana knew for the short time it took to finish reassembling the cupcake was which wire went where. If she had thought about him at all once he’d returned to the stage, she would have only thought he was cueing up for his magic act or a song or whatever came next in the five o’clock set on a Wednesday. Even if she’d seen him put his hand on Chica’s shoulder, it might not have given her much pause—the animatronics were a huggy bunch during operating hours—but if she’d heard what he said next, it would have been all the proof she needed, making fixing the cupcake itself entirely unnecessary: “SHE’S. ALMOST. DONE. SHE. HAS. BATTERIES. SHE’S. GOING. TO. TURN. IT. ON. BUT. IT’S OKAY. SHE’S. ALONE. BUT. SHE’S. TOO. BIG. SHE. CAN’T. TRIGGER. YOUR. CAPTURE-MODE. ALL. SHE. CAN. DO. IS. SHOW. IT. TO. YOU. SO. LISTEN. TO. ME. CHICA. HERE AT FREDDY’S, WE HAVE A FEW RULES. FOR YOUR SAFETY, LISTEN CAREFULLY. RULE NUMBER FORTY-THREE, NO ANIMATRONIC IS ALLOWED ONSTAGE DURING ANOTHER ANIMATRONIC’S SCHEDULED PERFORMANCE. RULE FORTY-FOUR, DUETS ARE PROHIBITED UNLESS BOTH ANIMATRONICS ARE ONSTAGE. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

But she didn’t see and she didn’t hear. Ana slid the outer shell over the inner one, locked it down, popped in a couple fresh batteries and closed up the case. As soon as the tab clicked into place and formed that complete seal, she heard tiny motors start to whine and felt a slow spread of warmth between her hands as circuits came to life. She turned the cupcake right-side-up and set it on the desk facing her.

Its eyes lit up. It blinked, looked left, looked right, looked at her. Ana found it difficult to meet its gaze for long. Although the light was not especially bright, it hurt to look directly at it, like looking into a laser pointer. “Well, hi there!” it said. 

It sounded exactly like a talking cupcake. Ana had not realized she knew what that would sound like until she heard it, but hearing it, she identified it immediately.

“Hi,” she said cautiously.

“I’m Babycakes! What’s your name?”

“Ana.”

It did not attempt to say her name back at her, but simply giggled and said, “How old are you?”

“A lady doesn’t tell and a cupcake doesn’t ask,” Ana said primly. “Besides, I thought Freddy’s was a magical place for kids _and_ grown-ups. What difference does it make how old I am?”

Babycakes waited for her to stop talking, giggled again, and said, “Are you having fun?”

She considered her options and said, “No.”

Something in the cupcake ticked and hummed. It said, “Awwww! What’s wrong?”

Ana shrugged, feeling a bit silly and unsure why. She was talking and Babycakes was talking back, but it did not feel like a conversation. It wasn’t like talking to Bonnie or Foxy or Freddy…or even Chica, whose dialogue paths were the least evolved. This was just a toy. 

She didn’t know whether she felt relieved or disappointed.

“Don’t be shy,” said Babycakes. “You can tell me if you’re sad. I’m your friend. And friends make friends feel better when they’re sad.” It clicked and hummed again, then replayed its sympathetic, “Awwww! What’s wrong?”

“It’s just a sucky sort of day,” said Ana. “I’ve been playing catch-up all week and I’m not there yet. I’ve only got a few days left before I start the roofing work and I still haven’t gotten the transfer box hooked up to the main. If I don’t get the lead out in a hurry, I’ll be pushing that damn elephant of a generator back and forth through the building on roofing day.”

“That’s too bad,” said Babycakes. “But things will get better. You just have to think positive!”

“Yeah, sure. Think positive. Well, it’s hot as hell and I’m under serious water restrictions, so I’m positive I reek, like, all the time. Just between us, I’m positive I’ve got a pretty good case of sweaty boob rash going on.”

“I’m having so much fun,” said Babycakes.

“Also, I haven’t been laid in almost a year. Which may have something to do with the fact that things are positively heating up between me and the bunny. No lie, if I had some guarantee of getting Freddy out of the room for just twenty minutes, I would jump on that purple bastard and ride until he or I or both of us broke.”

“That sounds like fun!”

“It does, doesn’t it? Which says something unpleasant about me, I’m sure, since he’s only, what? Twelve, thirteen years old? I’m a damn hebephile.”

“I like you.”

“You don’t have the slightest idea what I’m saying, do you?”

“Do you want to be my friend?” asked Babycakes.

“Jesus, I got myself so worked up and you’re nothing but a cupcake-shaped version of a Furby. Not even a real Furby, but the fucking lame-ass reboot.”

“Do you want to be my friend?” asked Babycakes again.

“Eat shit and die, Frosting-Face,” Ana remarked, giving the candle set in the cupcake’s head an idle twist. It wound like the key on a music box, just as she’d known it would, and began to tinkle out notes.

Babycakes squinted up its eyes and giggled, but when it had played itself out, it looked at her and said, “I think I’m lost. Can you help me find Chica?” 

“Well, I already feel like kind of an idiot, but sure, what the hell. Come on, Sugarbuns.”

It was a fairly long walk from the back end of the building where the security office was located to the show stage in the front. Babycakes tried a couple opening lines on her, but Ana didn’t respond to its chatter and giggles, and by the time she pushed through the hanging plastic sheets into the dining room, it had begun to yawn. The animatronics were in the middle of their act, so Ana sat down on her table to wait, holding the cupcake where it could see the stage too and occasionally giving it a slap to keep it from going to sleep on her. 

Babycakes did not attempt to sing along with any of the songs. And although Chica was a bit twitchy up there as she played her invisible keyboard, Ana couldn’t honestly say that meant anything ominous. Sometimes, they just got twitchy. 

When the set ended, before Bonnie could get in the way, Ana hopped down from the table and headed for the stage. “Shut up,” she said, since Babycakes was giggling, then raised her voice and called out, “Come here, Chica. I have something for you.”

Chica looked at her and for half a second or so, all she did was shiver. Then something in her must have clicked over because she clapped her trembling hands and happily chirped, “FOR ME? AWW, THAT’S SO SWEET!” 

“Sweet’s my middle name,” Ana agreed.

“My name is Babycakes!”

“Shut up, I said.”

Freddy came to take Chica’s arm and help steady her as she descended the three short steps. Chica could sometimes be weird about accepting this kind of help, but today she clutched at him, looking up into his face with an imploring expression.

“REMEMBER. THE. RULES,” he told her.

Ana wasn’t sure which rule he was referring to in this case, but it might have been the one about not touching Freddy, because Chica nodded, released his arm and climbed down the last step on her own. She waddled over to Ana, tapping her fingertips together and twitching a bit at the neck and shoulder joints.

“I found something,” said Ana, holding the cupcake up so the two of them were eye-to-eye. “I think it’s yours.”

Chica’s abdominal plate rattled. She put a hand over it and said, “IS THIS YOUR FAVORITE TOY? IT’S SO CUTE!”

“Well, hi there!” said Babycakes.

“HI THERE, I’M CHICA!” Chica replied, the pupils of her eyes rapidly irising open and shut, over and over.

“My name is Babycakes! What’s your name?”

Ana frowned, but Chica appeared undaunted.

“HI THERE,” she chirped again, “I’M CHICA!”

“Do you want to be my friend?”

“SURE! LET’S BE FRIENDS! DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

“How old are you?”

Chica twitched hard. “SURE! LET’S SING A SONG!” she chirped and did, launching immediately into _The Safety Song_ while the cupcake blinked and giggled and occasionally yawned.

As they worked it out, Ana glanced over at Bonnie, idly wondering why he wasn’t singing along. He was watching, and twitching, but not joining in. Weird. Or not. She was standing awfully close to Chica after all, and the animatronics did a pretty good job of not getting in each other’s way when they were talking to guests. Chica had never interrupted when it was Ana and Bonnie going off together. 

She had almost convinced herself and then she looked at Freddy.

Freddy was watching her. Not Chica and Babycakes, watching Ana. When their eyes met, he turned around and went over to Bonnie, starting up one of their between-set dialogues, but his gaze kept coming back to her. 

‘You’re getting paranoid,’ Ana told herself, watching Freddy sneak peeks at her. ‘You’re the only guest here. Who the hell else is he going to look at?’

“I think I’m lost,” Babycakes said suddenly.

Chica cut herself off mid-verse. “LET’S GO FIND YOUR MOM!”

“Can you help me find Chica?”

“WHAT DOES SHE LOOK LIKE?” Chica asked.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” sighed Ana. Catching Chica by the wing, she pushed the cupcake into the animatronic’s trembling hand and made her plastic fingers close on it.

Babycakes made a clicking sound. “Hi, Chica!”

Ana stepped back. In spite of everything, she hadn’t really believed it…or hadn’t wanted to admit she believed it.

“IS THIS YOUR FAVORITE TOY?” Chica asked, shivering. “AWW, IT’S SO CUTE!”

“This is yours,” said Ana faintly. “It’s really yours.”

“ARE YOU SHARING YOUR TOYS WITH ME? THAT’S SO SWEET!”

“Well, hi there!” said Babycakes.

“It’s yours,” said Ana, refusing to take the cupcake back. And when Chica just kept holding it out, Ana reached and wound the candle.

This time, as soon as she let go and the music began to play, Babycakes opened its eyes and sang. “ _My best friend’s name is Chica and we’re always together!_ ” 

Chica’s head wrenched to a stiff bird-like angle and the few plastic feathers on top of her head jittered with the tremors that ran through her, but she did not join in. 

“ _And that’s how you show you’ve got a friend!_ ” Babycakes concluded after an awkward pause.

“Aren’t you going to sing?” asked Ana.

Chica looked at her. “DO YOU WANT TO SING A SONG?”

Ana could only shake her head. Chica could no more not sing along with a song she knew than Ana could not convert oxygen into carbon dioxide. Babycakes was obviously at home in her hand…but Chica barely seemed to know it was even there.

Babycakes opened its eyes and sang, “ _I can always count on Chica whenever I need a hand!_ ” and looked up and around, waiting out what was now obviously Chica’s part of the song, before continuing on, “ _And that’s how you know you’ve got a friend!_ ”

Chica looked at her, her pupils in constant flux, opening almost wide to enough to fill her sockets, only to snap back to normal in an instant. “ARE YOU SHARING YOUR TOYS WITH ME? THAT’S SO SWEET! BUT YOU CAN HAVE IT BACK NOW.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Time for my big dance number!” Babycakes interjected and its eyes moved back and forth, frosting flipping up and down, punctuated by exclamations of, “Oh yeah! I’m on fire today! Okay, big finish now!” before bursting into song again. “ _I am always on your side and you always lift me up!_ ” Silence. “ _And that’s how you know, that’s how you show, wherever you go, you’ve got a friend!_ ”

The music ran out.

Ana and Chica stared at each other.

“ARE YOU SHARING YOUR TOYS WITH ME?” Chica asked again. “THAT’S SO SWEET!”

“It’s not mine,” said Ana and felt her cracked certainty shatter. “It’s not yours either, is it?”

Chica stared at the cupcake in her hands until it giggled at her, then twitched hard and said, “IF YOU LOSE SOMETHING OR IF YOU FIND SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU, YOU SHOULD TAKE IT TO THE LOST AND FOUND.”

Ana sighed and finally smiled. “And that’s it, huh? That’s all you’ve got for me?”

Chica shivered. “IF YOU NEED HELP, YOU SHOULD ASK AN ADULT.”

“I am an adult.”

Chica held out the cupcake.

“Hoist by my own petard,” remarked Ana, but took it. “Thanks, Chica.”

“YOU’RE WELCOME! DO YOU WANT TO SING A SONG—” Chica twitched, her eyes filling up with black before slowly shrinking down to their usual soft purple color. “DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?”

“Maybe later.” Ana took the cupcake back to the security office and put it on the desk next to the fan, ignoring its intermittent efforts to engage her as she cleaned up her tools. Soon, it was yawning and soon after that, it shut its eyes and switched itself off, as any toy will do when not in use. 

Ana put her belt back on, gathered the empty bottles and the uneaten portion of her burger, dumped them in a box in the break room and went on from there through the store room to the kitchen, where she holstered a few fresh bottles of water before climbing back up on the roof. If she had happened to look down through the dining room roof, she would have seen Chica huddled at the foot of the stage, gripping Freddy’s hand in both of hers, her face pressed to his round belly. His other hand rested on the top of her bent head, not petting her and not speaking, but only holding her close while Bonnie knelt at his side, rubbing Chica’s shoulder to soothe her shivers.

But Ana didn’t need to work over the dining room anymore, so she never saw them. She checked once on the quarry, but the fireworks party had fizzled out and the guys still gathered there were just sitting around and talking. If she could have heard them talking—about Freddy’s, about her—she would not have dismissed them so easily, but she couldn’t hear them, and even through the binoculars, she couldn’t get a good enough look at their faces to realize she knew them. All she knew was she still had a few hours of daylight and a lot to do, so she got to work.

# * * *

As Ana worked on the roof that would be keeping off the rain on that night, less than two weeks away now, that would find her lying on the floor of Pirate Cove in a puddle of cooling blood, Riley Hill, who would also be there on that not-so-distant night, walked with his sort-of-friend down Old Quarry Road right past the pizzeria he thought was abandoned and empty. It was neither, as he would learn. Riley would die in that building, on that night, listening to the rain on the roof and the tinkling notes of the Toreador March. No one would ever find his body. At the time of his death, no one had yet realized he was missing. That he had come to a bad end somewhere seemed obvious as the years passed, but no one could have guessed how. Even Mike Schmidt never put the name of Riley Hill on his list.

The Hill family had moved into town only three years ago after the promise of a job in California had dried up and blown away, leaving them to slink back to Jersey with no home, no income and dwindling credit on their already delinquent cards. After days on the road, Riley’s dad had taken a wrong turn off the highway and then a few more and somehow ended up in Mammon, where their van broke down. The guy at the repair shop had not been sympathetic enough to their tale of woe to fix the van for free, but he did have a sister who ran the town’s only trailer park and who needed someone to manage it. So they had moved in—two adults and six kids aged four to seventeen in one double-wide trailer. The idea had been for his dad to get a job while his mom managed the paper side of the park and the older kids pitched in on the physical side and took care of the younger ones. It was all temporary, they assured each other, just until they had their financial feet under them. They’d find something better as soon as something better came along.

Something better never did. 

Riley had still been in school then, at least in theory. He had given up on education when he was twelve and his teachers followed suit a few years later. By the time he was enrolled in Mammon’s Blackwood High, he was contentedly illiterate, attending school only when it was raining and he had nowhere else to go. The only thing he needed to know was where the next high was coming from, and once he’d gained an introduction to Jack Kellar, who at that time was the baddest element Mammon had to offer, Riley’s education was complete.

If the loose company that was Jack’s clique could be viewed as a ladder, Riley would have been the lowest rung. He knew it, but had no ambition to rise any higher. Everyone needed someone they could step on, after all, and by being the one guy who would always let it happen without resentment or retribution, Riley had made his position in the Kellar gang secure. Even after Mason Kellar got out of prison and came home to show Mammon what a real bad element looked like, Riley felt reasonably safe hanging out with them. He could not read or drive or cook, but he made up for it by doing whatever else he was told to do, regardless of personal threat. He held whatever Mason or Jack told him to hold, delivered whatever he was told to deliver, and could be convincingly ignorant on those rare occasions that the local law tried to question him because he genuinely knew nothing most of the time.

A few months ago, back at the Riley homestead, the bickering had progressed through icy silence to screaming to throwing things to hitting to regular visits from cars with spinning lights, and at last, the family ties snapped. Late one evening as Riley was hanging out at the Kellar house, his mother made good on her longstanding threats, packed a bag, called her boyfriend to come get her, and left. Riley’s father very rationally threw every possession she’d left behind into their narrow yard and set it on fire. The wind was blowing strong off the quarry that night. An hour later, as the full force of Mammon’s volunteer fire department was putting out the last embers where previously there had been three trailers, the park office and a little playground, Riley’s father was arrested. The remainder of their broken family went in the back of the sheriff’s car to the government building and phone calls were made. In the morning, the children were driven to the nearest Greyhound station and put on five different buses to meet with extended relatives in five different states. By noon, Riley’s father was being transported out to the county jail. And at a little past three in the afternoon, Riley woke up on Jack Kellar’s floor and went home to find a lot of ash where he used to sort of live.

Since then, he had been couch-surfing, wearing out the goodwill of the other members of Jack’s clique one by one, and sleeping in the park whenever they threw him out. That was fine for now, but every now and then, he found himself wondering what the hell he was going to do when summer ended and Mammon’s batshit crazy winter weather rolled in. He had tried to call his mom, but her number wasn’t working. The sheriff had given him a bunch of papers, but Riley couldn’t read them and eventually had lost them. He knew he’d be okay because he always had been, but it bothered him if he thought about it too hard, so he tried not to do that.

Today was a pretty good day, though. Mason had been in a bad mood the last couple of weeks, and even when Mason was in a good mood, he could be pretty scary, so Riley was staying nights with another of Jack’s low-rung lackeys, Bats. Bats was over thirty, looked forty, and lived in the basement at his mom’s house, where he had a pretty sweet spread, even if it did share space with the washer and dryer and water heater and stuff. Riley didn’t like Bats that much—he did a lot of meth and it made him mean and wild—but he liked Bats’s mom, who was a good cook and always set a place at the table for Riley when he stayed over. Bats swore at his mom when he got high and once even shoved her into a wall, but Riley was always nice to her, washing dishes and mowing grass and even going to church if he was there on Sundays (he tried not to be, for this reason). Sometimes, he had daydreams about Bats going away someplace vague and Riley living there instead, and she would call him a nice boy and he would take care of the place and it would be like a family thing.

But not today. Today, Bats and his mom had got into a huge fight over some stuff that had gone missing from her room, so they both had to leave. They went to Jack’s house, but Jack was out with his mom someplace and Mason had his guys over, so they left again. They went to the park first, but the park was too full of people all getting ready for the Fourth of July, so they ended up walking all the way out to the quarry, because Bats thought there might be some kids out there. Sometimes kids had money and they’d give it up if you pushed them around a little. Bats said there might even be girls. Riley had not liked the way he said it, but when you hung with Jack and Mason Kellar, you learned to roll with it, no matter what, and keep your mouth shut after.

There were no kids in the quarry when they got there, though, only grown men with jobs and cars who looked at you with their working-man eyes and cracked the knuckles on their working-man hands. Seeing them, Bats didn’t want to stay, but Riley recognized one of the men. Will Slater, who, back when they’d both been in high school, had actually been the one who introduced him to Jack Kellar. They hadn’t seen each other much since—Slater had managed to knock up a girl two years before Riley had even met him and as much fun as he could be, most of his talk had been bitching about diapers and bottles, so Riley had politely drifted away. Now, however, he could see that Slater and his friends had brought a cooler full of ice and beers and a box of chicken from the gas station, so he ignored Bats plucking at his arm and headed on over.

“Hey,” he said as four grown men stood up together to face off against him. “Long time, man. How’s the kid?”

Three men scowled but the fourth only frowned. “I know you?”

“Hell yeah, it’s me, Riley. We went to high school together. I was the new kid. And you were the fucking boss,” he added, because even if Riley had dropped out of formal education with a solid F-average, he was not necessarily stupid all the time. “You could have owned that fucking school if it hadn’t been for whatshername.”

“Fucking bitch,” replied Slater. “She thought she was going to get me to fucking marry her. That was her big plan from the start, you believe it?”

“I sure do,” said Riley, who had never met the girl in question. “Everyone fucking knew it. She was after you from the fucking start. She do it?”

“Naw, man. She tried and her folks tried, but fuck that. She squeezes enough blood out of me as it is. Fucking child support. How is that fair? I gave the bitch five hundred dollars for a fucking abortion, you believe that? What the hell did she spend it on?”

“And you know she’ll never pay it back,” said Riley. “Can’t even ask for it back or you’re the asshole, right?”

“Right!” cried Slater, flinging his empty bottle at the nearest boulder. “Jesus Christ, _you_ get it! No, I got to pay and pay and pay, and meanwhile, she’s just skipping through life like it’s a field of fucking daisies. First it’s she wants to finish high school and now she’s taking these courses out at the community college. She’s a fucking mom, _that’s_ her fucking job! But oh no, she wants to study hotel management, can you believe it? She spent one lousy summer cleaning sheets at the Sugartree and now she thinks she can run a hotel. Wants to move to Provo with her cousin. I told her go the fuck ahead and move. I’m tired of her dropping the little shit off with me every fucking weekend. Probably not even mine. I ought to get a fucking paternity, that’s what I ought to do. Only reason I don’t is because it might actually prove he’s mine and then she’ll dump him on me for good. Everyone always talks about these bitches who want full custody. Why couldn’t I have knocked up one of them? Plus, she’s getting fat,” groused Slater and sat back down, fishing out a fresh bottle from the cooler and tossing it to Riley, at whom Bats was staring with dumbfounded admiration. “Sit down, man. Guys, this is…”

“Riley,” said Riley, finding a comfortable rock to sit on and opening his beer. “And this is my buddy, Bats.” 

“Wyborn,” said the man next to Slater, then nodded at the other two. “And that’s Taylor and Hageman.”

“Wow,” said Bats with a laugh. “You know you’re sitting at the grown-up’s table when nobody uses a fucking first name.”

All four working men looked at him, identical stares, unsmiling.

“What the hell kind of name is Bats?” Slater asked and immediately turned to Riley. “Why the hell are you hanging out with a guy who calls himself Bats? What the hell is that about? Is that supposed to be a fucking Batman reference? What is he, fucking ten? Bats,” he said again, glaring at Bats, who found enough of a fingernail to pick at. “Who the fuck are you kidding? You’re Arnold Campbell, you fucking sketcher.”

“Don’t mind him,” said Taylor, lighting up a cigarette and offering the pack to Riley; he took two and handed one to Bats. “He’s just pissy on account of the boss being up his ass lately.”

“Fucking belt-hitching motherfucker,” Slater muttered, and Wyborn gave him a comradely slap on the back. 

“Sucks,” said Bats, awkwardly attempting to redeem himself. “What kind of work do you do?”

“Shelton Contractors. Construction. Well, this month,” he added with a snort. “Last month, he had me digging ditches like a fucking tool, changing out the old drainage pipes for part-time pay.”

“Yeah, I saw you guys doing that,” said Bats with cautious enthusiasm. “Closing off a different back road every day. I had to go fucking two miles out of my way just to get around you once.”

“You think that was my idea, fucktard?” Slater challenged and gave Riley another incredulous stare. “Why are you with this fucking guy?”

“He’s a friend of mine,” said Riley and followed up with a wrinkle-smoothing, “Hot as hell out there for that kind of work. Sorry, man. That sucks monster balls.” 

“You’re telling me, man. Working my ass into the fucking ground while Shelly stands there with his thumbs through his belt, all, ‘Harrumph harrumph, you boys better get busy!’” he said in a goofy-dumbass voice that would have done any twelve year-old proud. “He can’t prove I had anything to do with those other culverts, why’s he got to punish me?”

“Because you took them,” said Taylor.

“You can’t prove that either,” said Slater with a hard stare. “And anyway, I wasn’t the only one who scrapped those culverts. He’s already backed off Wyborn, so why’s he still riding me?”

“Ah, he’s always on the rag about something,” Hageman declared, drinking. “Let it go, man. He’ll move on to the next guy who fucks up.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re about to be the only licensed electrician left on payroll. You could drop trou and take a steamy shit on his desk and he wouldn’t say a fucking word about it.”

“Stay in school, kids,” said this Hageman with a justified smirk. 

“Sounds like he’s got it out for you,” said Riley, pulling the bucket of chicken over to him.

“He’s punishing me,” Slater insisted, slapping his wounded heart, “because he’s running his business into the fucking ground. That’s all this is. He likes to strut around talking about the old days, blah blah blah, with Big Paulie and Burtwell and all those other old farts nodding their heads, but the fact of the matter is, he does not know what he’s doing anymore. We all know it, but Stark really rubbed his nose in it and now he knows he just looks like a fucking fossil.”

Bats looked up from the cigarette he was lighting, twin flames from his Bic reflected in his narrow eyes. “Stark?”

“You know.” Slater mimed pulling something out of the back of his head—a braid—and then cupped his hands impressively in front of his chest. “Come on, you’ve got to know who I’m talking about. She’s the hottest piece of ass in this whole fucking town. The Stark kid. Annie.”

“Ana,” said Bats, the name leaving his mouth as smoke. “Yeah, I know her. Went to school with her back in the day. Don’t really remember her.”

“Gee, I wonder why?” Hageman said with a snort.

“She was a couple grades below me,” Bats told him, wiping defensively at his mouth, like that could hide his yellowed and missing teeth. “Who the fuck notices a third-grader when you’re in sixth?”

“She did the remodeling work at my friend’s house,” Riley piped up. “That’s how I know her.”

The working men gave Riley another group-stare, this one more cautious. 

“You know Mace Kellar?” Slater asked finally.

“Yeah, sure,” said Bats, omitting the information that it was mostly Mason’s brother, Jack, that they knew. “We hang out all the time.”

“And Ana’s cool,” Riley added. He meant it, too, although he hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words with her in all the time he’d known her. She had brought doughnuts a couple times and had never once yelled at Riley for getting in her way. Beyond that, he genuinely envied the way she talked to Mason, like she wasn’t scared of him at all. Jack didn’t like her, though, so it was smart to talk shit about her when Jack could hear, but Riley had been a little sorry when she stopped coming around. “She’s working for your boss now?”

“Was. She walked on him last week. I don’t know the details.” Slater had a sip of beer, looking sourly over his shoulder. “What’s she need to worry about work for? She’s got that big house up there on Coldslip. Probably worth millions.”

“Naw. Place is a shithole,” said Bats as Riley looked curiously up at the dark, wooded slopes of the mountain. He couldn’t see any houses. In the three years he’d been in Mammon, he’d never realized there was anything out here on Old Quarry Road but the old pizza place and the quarry itself. “You may think it’s all antiques, but I’m telling you, I’ve been up there a couple times. Basement’s full of shit like you would not believe, and it’s all junk. It’s like a black hole for fucking yard sale garbage.”

“Shows what you know,” said Slater. “Besides, it’s not the stuff in the house, it’s the house itself that’s got money in it, if you know where to look. All those old buildings are full of copper wires and pipes, and a place like that, probably the doorknobs are brass and there’s maybe a bunch of carved wood trim and stuff that’s worth a fucking fortune. I’d have scrapped it out a long time ago if I’d had something decent to haul the goods off in. Now it’s too late. I’d give my left nut for just one night alone in that dump. I could fucking retire.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Hageman warned. “Stark won’t bother calling the cops if she hears a bump in the night, she’ll come at you with a fucking hammer. Besides, I’d be very much surprised if that place still qualifies as a dump. She’s been fixing it up, I hear, and she does good work—”

“For a girl,” Slater muttered. “Everybody in this fucking town’s having screaming chocolate orgasms over that goddamn daycare like it’s the only set of shelves anyone ever saw. Hell, I could have built better, if I wasn’t busting my ass on culverts.”

“How do those grapes taste?” Hageman asked with a crooked smile. “Little sour, you say? Anyway, I’m guessing her house probably looks pretty good by now. I wouldn’t say it’s worth millions, but she might get her money back out of it when she sells, which is a goddamn miracle in my opinion.”

“She’s putting it up for sale?” Taylor asked. “First I’ve heard of it. Who told you?”

“No one, but come on. What the hell else is she going to do?”

“You really think you could get that much for pipes?” Bats pressed, leaning forward slightly to peer at Slater.

“Copper ones, sure. All that old metal shit is worth money, man. Copper, brass, even aluminum and steel goes for _something_. That place—” Slater pivoted and pointed his beer up at the pizza parlor that squatted, abandoned as long as Riley had lived in Mammon, up on the plateau. “—would be a fucking gold mine if you could get inside it. All I’ve managed to do so far is get into the lobby, but there’s so much fucking shit heaped up, I can’t dig past it. Still, last time I was there, I pulled enough crap out of the pile to turn into fifty bucks.”

“Big money,” drawled Hageman, shaking his head. “Man, that isn’t even enough to pay your gas, much less your bail.”

“What do I keep telling you? I’ve got a fucking Fiat! I can barely fit change in my pocket driving that fucking clown car! Let me borrow your truck for one night!”

“So you can break into Freddy’s and fill it with stolen property? Fuck that, you’re on your own.”

“Wyborn—”

“Hey, once was enough, man,” said Wyborn, putting up both hands like he was warding off a gun. “I can’t do that shit again. I’m a coward. I still about piss myself every time I see Zabrinsky and do you know how often I see that guy? He lives two houses down from me!”

Slater turned to Riley. “What kind of car you got, man?”

“Don’t have one,” Riley admitted. “Sorry.”

“My mom’s got a minivan,” said Bats. “I could borrow it.”

“Okay, if you guys are going to talk crimes, I’m going to hit the road,” Hageman announced, heaving himself onto his feet.

“It’s not a real crime,” Slater said scornfully. “It’s recycling. I’m not breaking into anyone’s house, for Christ’s sake. The building’s empty.”

“Except for Freddy,” Taylor said, also rising to leave. Seeing Riley’s confusion, he tipped a wink. “Freddy’s always there.”

“Who’s Freddy?” asked Riley.

The men looked at each other and sat back down. Fresh beers were opened. Stories were told, campfire stories without the campfire, beginning a hundred years ago with miners in this very quarry, a collapse, a cannibal, and so on up through the ages, with hungry ghosts haunting cursed land until they found homes in, of all things, animal-shaped robots at the town pizza parlors. All of which sounded like bullshit, they all solemnly agreed, but people did go missing in Mammon. Everyone knew someone who had disappeared in Freddy’s—a cousin, a sister’s boyfriend’s brother, a babysitter’s grandmother’s best friend. Everyone had gone to Freddy’s when they were kids and seen the animatronics for themselves, and everyone had snuck in after hours to see the way they were when no one was around. And everyone knew they were still there, in that pizza parlor right now, walking the empty halls in search of trespassers to catch and eat. 

For Riley, talk of scrapping was utterly forgotten, but not for Bats. As Riley listened with increasing unease, Bats and Slater drew off to one side to talk, occasionally gesturing up at the building they thought was empty as they made plans for Bats’s mother’s minivan and the Fourth of July.


	11. Chapter 11

# CHAPTER ELEVEN

As the sun began its final descent on the first day of July, Ana sat on the loading dock of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, enjoying the feel of the breeze if not the smell of it, and suffering the oppressive heat even as she basked in the inner warmth of a day’s work done well. There were a few hours of daylight left and she supposed she had work enough to fill them, but she was comfortable with the progress she’d made. Yes, she’d have to make up tomorrow everything she’d put off today, but life was about learning to compromise and sometimes a girl needed a cold beer and some dank weed more than she needed to check off all her little boxes. Her only regret was that she hadn’t thought to go get dinner first, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Once the cap came off and the lighter came out, the keys went away. Ana Stark had done a lot of stupid things in her life and had no doubt she’d go on to do a lot more, but she always flew responsibly.

So she was done for the day, but as ready as she was to relax, she found it difficult to switch off her brain. Again and again, it took her through a speed-build of the roof, looping through the stages, playing out alternate paths should various obstacles arise, bringing her triumphantly to the conclusion only to queue itself up again. She had a feeling the problem would resolve itself by the end of this joint, but in the meantime, it was damned annoying. She just wanted to relax and yet, here she was again, skipping through tomorrow to wake up predawn on the 3rd, climbing up to the roof and laying down the deck, building outward from the storeroom-corner so she never had her back to the road. Get the underlayment down, even if it meant working through the night, and up again at five on the 4th, tar and overlay in sections, should be done well before midnight. A good night’s sleep and up at five on Sunday to finish off with the top-coat and all the booting around the HVAC system.

The real HVAC system, she amended, glancing back and up through the exposed beams at what she could see of the mystery ductwork that had been hidden in the old roof. 

It still bothered her. What were they? They weren’t anything to do with the air conditioning system; the effort of believing that, even half-heartedly, was too exhausting to keep up. But they weren’t anything like the ducts she and Mike had crawled through at the Toybox, either. They were big enough, sure, but at the Toybox, the ducts had been on the ground and had openings in all the rooms where…someone…might want to spy on their prey. Here, the ducts were on the ceiling and the vents, what few there were, were set inaccessibly high, in places that Ana could not imagine gave anyone a good view of the guests below. If it wasn’t for a practical purpose and wasn’t part of Mike Schmidt’s killer-animatronic nonsense, what was it for?

Easy enough to see for herself.

“Oh come on,” Ana murmured, even as her heart leapt with excitement. “You can’t really be thinking about climbing in there.”

Why not? She’d been climbing _on_ them all morning. Real life was not Die Hard and real air ducts could not hold the weight of a human being, but those were not real air ducts. If she ever wanted to know just what they really were, she had to get inside them. And besides…

Here, Ana’s eyes closed so that she could better ‘see’ the ductwork behind her, and the way it branched outward from the middle of the building, from a great round hub set directly atop the vault that was the parts room. As if it were connected to it.

…besides, even if there was nothing in them, it might be worth exploring it just to get backstage. In all of Mike Schmidt’s stories, the secret basement that was never on the building plans was always accessed through the parts room. The idea that she would find a secret stair (in her mind, it looked a lot like the one behind the grandfather clock in her aunt’s house) down to Erik Metzger’s evil underground lair remained ludicrous, but the shadow of her doubt remained. It wasn’t enough to just look at the space the parts room occupied and know intellectually there wasn’t room for stairs, she had to see it. She had to be there, to be able to search and say, finally and forever, nope. No dumbwaiter, no elevator, no maintenance shaft, no ladder. Nothing but a parts room and a little black binder with absolutely no connection between them.

Ana smoked, deliberately not thinking about it, not making plans. And when she reached the end of her joint, she put it out, got up, went inside and somehow ended up in the quiet room with her toolbox. She kept a couple glowsticks in her miscellaneous drawer. She took them now. Not a flashlight. She wanted both hands free. 

“This is stupid,” she told herself as she tucked the glowsticks in her pocket. “There’s nothing up there.” She found her kneepads and strapped them on to help with the crawling. “Except rats and spiders. It’s going to be fucking choked with rats and spiders.” She knew. “And Freddy will catch you and flip his ever-loving shit.” She knew that, too, but Freddy couldn’t be everywhere.

That thought wasn’t even all the way out of her head before Ana opened the quiet room door and hit Freddy right in the face. She knew it was Freddy in part because he was the one animatronic she hadn’t wanted to bump into, but also because when the door hit him, she heard a honking sound. Bonnie’s nose was just a smooshed-down hackeysack ball these days, Chica’s beak was MIA, Foxy couldn’t leave Pirate Cove until after closing time, so the only nose that could be honked anymore was Freddy’s. If she needed more proof, she got it when his paw hit the door from the other side; the door had one of those spring-arms on it and couldn’t be slammed, but if it could, it would have knocked her back into the quiet room on her ass. Even as it was, she had to jump a little to get out of its way when Freddy shoved it shut.

“WATCH. IT,” he growled, glaring at her over his hand as he adjusted his muzzle.

“Watch yourself, bear,” Ana replied, because one beer and one joint wasn’t much until you had them both at the same time on an empty stomach. “This is a big hall with a lot of damn doors. Walk on the other side if you don’t want to get hit.”

Any other day, he would have been as eager to chat with her as to set himself on fire, but today, for whatever reason, he looked her over, his gaze lingering on her knee pads, and said, “WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?”

“Nothing,” she said, so casually. “Just working.”

He grunted. The sound was not suspicious, but he still didn’t move on. “I. THOUGHT. YOU. WERE. DONE.”

“What made you think that?”

His head cocked. “YOU. DID. AN. HOUR. AGO. WHEN. YOU. SAID. YOU. WERE. DONE.”

Ana thought about it, and sure enough, she had. In fact, her exact words as she’d limped into the dining room to throw her sweaty shirt at Swampy had been, “Fuck this day, I’m done!” but of course, Freddy Fazbear wasn’t going to quote that back at her, verbatim.

“I thought of some other stuff that can’t wait,” she said. “Just real quick stuff. In and out.”

He grunted, nodded, took one step, and then stopped to look back at her. “IN. AND. OUT. OF. WHAT.”

Oh for Christ’s sake, had she really said that? “It’s a figure of speech, bear,” she said testily. “Don’t take everything so literally.”

He grunted again, this time with a hint of disapproval, but at least he started walking.

Just started. After a few steps, he stopped and looked back. “HAVE. YOU. EATEN.”

“Fuck off, Freddy,” came out of her before she could bite it back. This was maybe a good thing; at least it convinced him all was normal. He grunted once more—his annoyed Freddy-grunt—and moved on.

Finally.

Ana made her way to the security office as fast as she could safely go. It took Freddy about thirty minutes to make a complete circuit of the building, assuming he didn’t stop to talk to anyone. Plenty of time. She unwrapped a glowstick, gave it a snap and a shake, and hooked the plastic clippy bit through the neck of her t-shirt. It was green, casting an eerie alien glow over her familiar surroundings. In this light, she took her bearings.

The vent was directly over the security window, which was itself directly over the desk. An old desk, but a sturdy one. It took her weight when she cautiously climbed it, but left her wholly exposed to anyone who might pass by in the back hall, so she didn’t linger. 

She took her screwdriver out, but a closer inspection of the vent hatch showed her she didn’t need it. The hatch was hinged and after a token protest, opened to her freely. Everything was black, but her questing hands felt a thick, rubbery pad on the bottom of the duct that was different from the smooth, sun-warmed metal on the other surfaces. There was no breeze, which at the time she was stupid enough to think of as a relief; the hatch already looked like a mouth and she wasn’t sure she could make herself go in it if it was breathing at her. But the air was still and dense within the duct, unmoving. It gave up no sounds, although she strained her ears until she imagined she could hear the ocean—her own blood washing over her eardrums—no sign of even the smallest life, unless it was the unmistakable smell of death.

Rats, she decided. Maybe some birds and raccoons, if she had missed an exterior vent hidden in the eaves. Critters crawled into places like this all the time and died. Nothing sinister about it, just bad judgment by a dumb animal.

And so thinking, Ana pulled herself up and crawled inside.

# * * *

With the imaginary kiddies sent off for the next twenty minutes, Foxy made himself cozy in the bow of his ship, humming as he watched the curtain billow in the wind. His stage had an overhang that prevented him from seeing the sky, but enough light came in through the holes in the curtains to let him see without lighting up his eyes, which he couldn’t do during operating hours unless he was performing. Ana would have the roof on in just a few days and then he would be blind all day again, so Foxy meant to enjoy the hell out of his limited vision. 

He pulled a doubloon out of his pocket. Brilliant things, pockets. He proceeded to walk it across his knuckles, appreciating little things like sunlight and pockets, killing time before the last set of the day started. The last full set, anyway. Technically, there would be a nine o’clock set, but he wouldn’t even have time to go through his entire greeting before he’d be sending them off. In another week or two, the sun would be down before nine again. By the end of summer, it would be down before eight. Foxy did not keep a calendar here—Freddy didn’t like him marking up the walls—so his only real sense of time these days came from how many performances he was forced to play out and how long his nights were.

He wondered if Ana would still be here when it got to be winter, and his nights were twelve hours long.

The East Hall door opened. Foxy heard grumbling, the wheeze and thump of Freddy’s heavy footsteps. Patrolling before the next set started. All was well with the world.

“FOXY.”

“Aye?” He flipped the doubloon, walked it, flipped it again. Amazing how easy it was, even without skin on his fingers, as long as he had light.

“HAVE. YOU. SEEN. AN-N-A.”

“Aye, sure.”

“WHEN?”

“Don’t know.” Foxy flipped the doubloon and caught it, thinking. “Noonish, I reckon. Maybe-be-be one. Suppose I see-ee- _eeeeeeee_ —blasted box,” he muttered, slapping his speaker. “I seen her a t-t-time or two since, running along the rafter-r-r—ARR!”

“BUT. YOU. HAVEN’T. SEEN. HER. IN. THE. LAST. HOUR.”

Foxy knew he hadn’t, but he thought about it anyway. “Ain’t-t-t seen hide nor hair in at least-t-t two,” he admitted, pocketing his doubloon and jumping down to the stage below. He moved the curtain aside and frowned out across the empty auditorium, golden in the sunset, to Freddy. “But there ain’t-t-t nothing odd about that, mate. If’n I sees her at-t-t all, it ain’t until she’s fetching herself ready-dy-dy for bed. Is her t-tr-truck here?”

“YES. BUT. SHE’S. NOT.”

“Well, that’s proves it, don’t it? She probably-ly-ly made herself a dinner and took a walk. Ye d-d-don’t think so?” he asked dryly, since Freddy had answered that with an eye-roll and a scornful snort. “Let me g-g-guess. Ye been p-p-pestering her about eating and she t-t-told ye to back off.”

“I,” said Freddy, firmly and with dignity, “DO. NOT. P-P-PESTER-R-R.”

“No, mate, never.”

“AND. SHE. DIDN’T. SAY. BACK. BEFORE. SHE. SAID. OFF.”

Foxy barked out a laugh. “No, I’ll bet-t-t she didn’t. Look, Fred, she’s around-d-d. Sure, she might-t-t be hiding from ye, but if she is, ye might want t-t-to ask yerself why.”

Freddy grunted sourly and turned around, muttering, “BECAUSE. SHE’S. SOME. WHERE. SHE. SHOULDN’T. BE.”

“There are other reasons, mate,” Foxy called, letting the curtain fall between them again. He caught the rail, swung himself up and onto the deck of his ship, and settled himself once again in the bow. He took his doubloon out, scratching his thumb over the face stamped into its plastic side, listening until he heard the door close and was sure Freddy was good and gone. Then he said, only half-playing, “Ye out-t-t there, luv?”

He listened, but heard only the wind, splitting around the new beams and exposed crawlway. For a moment, he almost thought he heard something else, something reminiscent of Mangle on her restless nights, but when he turned his ears in that direction and filtered out all other sound to the best of his limited abilities, the sound—if there even was a sound—was not repeated.

Freddy’s paranoia was contagious, he decided. And he might be feeling a bit off-color about not visiting Mangle…Foxanne in a while. He’d sneak out tonight, if he could. Soon as Ana came out of hiding and Freddy calmed down. Until then…

Foxy leaned his elbows on the rails and flipped his plastic coin. He caught it, walked it across his knuckles and flipped it again.

# * * *

Even after Ana was forced to acknowledge that she was lost, she wasn’t immediately worried. After all, she had seen the ductwork from the outside. She might not have marked its various twists and crossways as well as she thought she had, but she knew what she was getting into. In hindsight, she probably should have waited until she was stone-sober. One beer and one joint wasn’t much, but if it had been enough to keep her out of her truck, it should have been enough to keep her from pulling a boneheaded stunt like this. In the dark maze, she had nothing but her memory and her senses of distance and direction; all were impaired.

But still, she didn’t realize she was in trouble. Stupid, sure, but not in trouble. She knew she’d find her way out eventually, she just had to keep moving. And when she came to an unexpected dead-end, she just had to remember that it had been two left turns at the last two 4-ways, go straight at the T-section after that, then a right…no, wait, she’d gone up one of the shafts at some point, but which one? Okay, so it was one left, then down, then a left…that didn’t sound right, either.

She’d used her screwdriver to mark her way in the beginning, but whatever metal the ducts were made out of, her screwdriver was not up to the task of scratching it. She managed, but it was hard on her wrist and shoulder, and harder yet on the screwdriver; it snapped at the hilt on her seventh or tenth attempt. Without the hilt to give her a better grip and better leverage, the simple scratches she was able to create blended into all the others.

Because there were others. Deep ones, far deeper than Ana had been able to make with her screwdriver. They had to be tool marks made during manufacture or installment. Had to be, because as much as some of them might look like claw-marks and even though she had happened across dozens of little furry corpses (none fresh, but all obviously chewed on), the only animal big enough and strong enough to have left marks in this metal would have been a mountain lion. Maybe a bear.

Or a fox, thought Ana, thinking of Foxy’s hook, his exposed metal fingers and clawed feet. But even that didn’t wash completely. The scratches weren’t just in the padding on the bottom of the duct, where Ana’s own hands and feet bumped along as she crawled. They were everywhere, on every side, even the top of the duct. She could not imagine how even Foxy could have left them. So yeah, tool marks. That was the only rational conclusion and Ana was a rational person. She did dumb things now and then, but she did not own an Egg Minder and did not believe in ghosts.

She crawled on.

Time is a funny thing in the dark. It stretches out, snaps back. She would crawl for hours only to check her watch and see scarcely fifteen minutes had passed, or stop to catch her increasingly labored breath for just a few minutes and somehow lose half an hour. She had no idea where she was in relation to the building’s rooms below her. Even right after she’d entered the maze, when she knew some of the animatronics were still performing, she hadn’t been able to hear them. And now the restaurant was surely closed and they had no incentive to make noise. Here on the inside of the thickly padded duct, she could hear nothing but her own body bumping along, and that not very well. On the outside, she doubted anyone would be able to hear her at all. Maybe if the roof was on, but not with the wind blowing, howling like a chorus of church-going wolves as it split around the new beams and these very ducts. And even if she were to lie down and pound her boots, screaming for all her miserable life was worth, who would hear it? 

Slowly, it dawned on her that there was a very real possibility she was going to die up here. She was lost, but that was actually the least of her problems at the moment. It wasn’t like she was going to live long enough to die of hunger or thirst. Well…dehydration may play a role. The itch of sweat trickling down her skin and the sting of it in her eyes and open cuts was a constant irritant; even in the little time she’d been kneeling here, it had poured itself down her arms and legs into an honest-to-God puddle. That was not the kind of moisture anyone could just lose, but even that wasn’t the big problem. The sun might have set by now, but it had been beating down on the maze all day, turning all the loops and coils of this exposed duct into one long oven that would not cool for hours yet, and she was somewhere in the middle of it, but she honestly didn’t think she’d live even long enough to be cooked to death. No, there really was a big problem here and the irony was, she’d always known what it was, namely, that this ‘air duct’ wasn’t part of the ventilation system.

The air wasn’t moving. There were no fans, no pumps, no filters, no mechanical means of any kind to push the bad air out and pull good air in, and certainly her little human lungs couldn’t do it, so sooner or later, she was going to suffocate.

And then she was just going to have to lie here, withering up in the dark like one of these dead rats and birds, because no one knew she was here and no one would ever think to look for her in the ductwork at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. She’d just be one more missing person in Mammon, not that there were too damn many people who’d miss her. Eventually, someone would find her truck in the parking lot and the cops would investigate to find she’d been living in an abandoned pizzeria just a few miles down the road from the fucking mansion she’d inherited—one more mystery for a town already choked with them. She’d probably go into Mike Schmidt’s next black binder and he’d show her picture to the next fool who went asking about Freddy Fazbear as proof that the animatronics were eating people, and meanwhile, there would be Bonnie, waiting forever for her to come back…

Ana started crawling again, holding her stupid stump of a screwdriver in her fist. She did not panic. Her mind was the maze—splitting off into a thousand knotted paths, unlit and unmoving, with her forever at the center no matter where she went. She did not think and soon, even with her eyes open and staring, she stopped seeing as well, because when she came to the dropshaft at the center of yet another intersection, identical in every other way to every other four-way intersection she had already passed, she put her hand down it. It wasn’t very wide, no more than ten inches across, but that was wide enough to feel as if it contained the entire open universe to her flailing, unanchored arm as she toppled forward. It did not, of course. It contained a colony of common house spiders and their communal web, ten years in the weaving, which swallowed Ana’s arm right up to her shoulder. Her butt went up, her head went down. She clopped her chin a damned good one on the bottom of the duct, kicking up several dead spiders and one rather startled live one which she inhaled on her next breath and subsequently had to spit out. 

Letting out a choking hiss that should have been a scream, Ana dropped the broken screwdriver down the shaft and yanked her arm out. She heard it fall, tapping off the side of the shaft at least three times, but never heard it hit the ground, focused as she was on slapping away the tickle of spider-legs both real and imaginary. 

She didn’t get them all. Her strength gave out instead. She fought the collapse, but it happened anyway. She hit her elbows, her chest, her chin again, and there she lay, slowly rolling onto her side as spiders fled the scene of what had been, for them, a horrific and unprovoked spree killing. It was all a matter of perspective.

After a while, Ana decided she felt better. Sometimes a good dose of adrenaline was just what it took to clear the mind. She knew she wasn’t in the sort of trouble that a girl could really think her way out of, but even if all she’d managed to do was die with her head on straight, that was still something.

Ana’s glowstick had come free of her shirt, but it hadn’t rolled far. She collected it and sat up, forcing it against her chest with shaking fingers in mounting frustration until she realized she had broken the clip-part on the back. Okay, so what now? She took another one out, spent altogether too long working it out of its wrapper, gave it a snap and a shake and clipped it on. There. Back on track.

She looked at the shaft, now behind her. Had she gone over it or turned herself around? Or was this one of the intersecting passages? She aimed her clipless glowstick around the bottom of the duct in an effort to backtrack by her own sweaty handprints, but the air within the duct was so hot and dry, the slicks had already evaporated everywhere except right where she was sitting.

She needed to pick a passage and keep moving. The maze was not infinite. As long as she kept moving, she would get out. If she stopped, she’d suffocate, cook, shrivel up and die, not necessarily in that order. 

Ana rolled onto her hands and knees again, testing their waning stability. Not good. She crawled back to the shaft and peered down, thinking that had to be a clue to where exactly she was in the building, because she’d seen the maze from the outside and there were only so many vertical shafts this narrow. All she saw was webbing and it was impossible to tell how deep it went. Deeper than her arm was long, anyway.

Ana glanced at her glowstick. “Got one more job for you, old soldier,” she told it, and let it fall.

She watched it drop away into the dark, tearing through webs and catching the light of alarm in countless tiny arachnid eyes as it ripped away their homes and scattered their families, smack in the middle of the dinner hour. And then she kept on watching, because it kept right on falling, until suddenly the round walls of the shaft opened up and still it fell and fell, not in any air duct, but in a room, a dark room, darker than any room in Freddy’s could be right now, except for the parts room or the manager’s office or…

The basement.

The glowstick hit a plain, poured concrete floor in the very next instant, like a period at the end of her thought. It bounced, leaping as her heart leapt, and then rolled out of sight. She could see the green smudge of its light hovering on nothing, but the stick itself was gone.

Ana waited, not breathing, her pulse pounding in her ears, listening. For the slow rotted drag of a springtrap suit or the tap-tap-tap of the Puppet’s stilt-like legs, she didn’t know, but she didn’t even try to tell herself she wasn’t listening for footsteps. Any second now, she’d hear it. And then she’d see it. And then it would start crawling up the shaft to get her.

So she waited, but seconds became minutes, and the air got used up and stale, and nothing happened. How long did she want to wait?

Ana sat back as much as possible, confused, and so of course, as soon as she did, she thought she heard something. She leaned forward again, and before she knew it, she’d done the most amazingly stupid thing she’d ever done in a lifetime of straining for the Stupid Prize.

“Hello?” she called, immediately followed by, “Oh, you did not do that, you big dumb dead bitch.” Too late, she shut up and listened, but if she had heard a rustling sort of thump under her words (surely, that was her imagination), it was not repeated. Was that better or worse? A rustle could be any number of totally normal sounds to be found in any totally normal basement (what basement? There was no basement!), but a rustle followed by a silence had only one explanation that Ana could think of and that was as a coldly deliberate and calculating intelligence that was listening back up at her.

So Ana did it again, on purpose this time, cupping her hands around her mouth and yelling with what was left of her lung power: “Hey!”

She did not send rats or snakes or deep crows startling. There was no sound at all. The faint light of her off-screen glowstick remained unwavering and immobile.

All right, so…she was back to her original and still-pressing problem: She had to get out of this maze or she’d die. The shaft was not a help to her. She couldn’t fit through it and didn’t want to slide down a pipe full of spiders into a basement whose access point was just as unknown to her as the exit to this maze. She had to keep moving.

Ana looked helplessly around at the identical passages of this intersection, picked one, and started crawling. Straight. Left. Left. Up. Straight. Down. Right. And there the passage terminated, but it had one more surprise for her.

She had been finding bodies all throughout the maze, most of them little more than thatches of fur or feathers and bone scattered over a crust of dried gore, so stumbling onto the rat’s nest now was hardly shocking. No, it was the size of the thing that gave her pause. There were too many dead rats here to count, too many to even see. They had lived and bred and died here for years, their bodies overlaying one another until they formed a single ratcake, baked flat and filling the end of the duct at least ten feet in. Sprinkled in among them were other corpses, dried bellies torn open and stuffed with leaves and wires and other rattish nesting material. Squirrels, birds, the distinctive striped plume of a raccoon’s tail—all brought home to feed a colony that had, at one time, surely numbered in the thousands.

The combination of aged rat death-piss-musk in this windless, airless, exitless corner was overwhelming, not merely a smell or even a taste, but also a color, weight and sound.

Ana started to back up to the corner, where it was wide enough to turn herself around, but the glowstick clipped to her shirt came loose and naturally, this part of the maze was on a slant and where did the damn thing roll but right down into the fuzzy middle of the ratcake.

And there, almost invisible in the shadows until the glowstick rolled up and bumped to a stop against it, was a shape. Long, low, pale, organic—like nothing she could put a name to, except that of course she could, and that name was, ‘dead body’.

It couldn’t possibly be a dead body, though. Rats would have eaten it a long time ago.

So the rats had been dead by the time the body was left. Or did she think someone had wrapped themselves up in that blanket and curled up to sleep on a bed of dead rats by choice?

It was not a body. It was much too small.

Dead child, then.

Smaller than that.

Dead toddler.

Too streamlined. No arms or legs that she could see. If anything, she was looking at an old blanket or sweater, wrapped around something else, maybe a number of somethings. The overall shape of the thing was lumpy and wrinkled, distended in the middle and pulled thin at the ends. Pulled, yes, that was the word. Something wrapped for safekeeping, dragged and ultimately dropped. 

A dead something, that part of her insisted, because it knew even if she didn’t want to admit it. Dead has a way of lying there that is different from all that is merely inanimate. Whatever she was looking at now, it was dead.

Ana crawled closer, blinking sweat from her eyes like tears, but it didn’t move. How could it? It was dead. Or had never been alive. Or both.

When she finally reached the corner where it lay, she was more certain than ever that she was about to peel back this rotted winding cloth and find bones, so it shouldn’t have surprised her at all that she did. But when her fingers punched through that brittle fabric, more like paper than cloth after all these years and chaotic weathering, and spilled out all those tiny bones, Ana let out a raspy, “Haaaa!” that was the closest she had come to a scream since her mother beat the last one out of her at the age of seven or eight.

She thought they were finger-bones, which made this an arm, which made it—here, she would later realize heat had fully cooked her reasoning skills—the arm Blue had torn off back at the Toybox. He had not eaten it after all, but pushed it down into his rubbery stomach as a trophy and brought it up here for safekeeping. This was the arm, torn off—how did Mike put it? Like a drumstick off a Thanksgiving turkey, because some little kid had committed the unforgiveable sin of poking an animatronic’s nose and laughing at the happy honking sound it made.

Ana’s vision wavered. She wiped frantically at her eyes, but it wasn’t sweat obscuring her sight this time.

“Oh fuck, not here,” she said and fainted.

# * * *

Freddy came back at the start of the nine o’clock set. From behind the curtain, Foxy could hear him growling and pacing along the rails of the amphitheater for the three minutes it took to first welcome his little mateys to Pirate Cove and then to wish them fair seas and send them home. His curiosity as to why Freddy was not himself on his own stage shutting down the dining room was answered the very instant the last word was out of him, when Freddy said, “FOXY. WAKE UP.”

“I’m up-p-p,” Foxy said, shaking his head like that could clear it of the exceptions that came from having his closing program subverted. It wasn’t so bad, nothing like interrupting his actual routine would have been, which was why Freddy had waited three minutes. On the other hand, there was always a risk of going black and Freddy took that seriously. Something was wrong. “We got c-c-company?” he called, already opening his cabin door and reaching for his sword belt.

“NO.”

“No?” Foxy looked at the sword dangling from his fist and reluctantly hung it up again. “What d-d-do ye mean, no? What’s wrong, then?”

“HELP. ME. FIND. AN-N-A.”

Ana? Still missing? 

Foxy buckled his sword on. He jumped down from his ship and then his stage, taking the amphitheater steps two and three at a time as Freddy, still pacing, watched him come. “Her truck-k-k still here?”

“YES.”

“Anyone else c-c-come by?”

“NO. NOT. IN. A. CAR.”

“Anyone at-t-t the quarry?”

Freddy spread his arms in a frustrated sort of shrug. “IT’S. SUMMER. AND. ALMOST. THE. FOURTH. OF. JULY. BUT. IT. DOESN’T. MATTER. THEY. HAVEN’T. COME. UP. HERE.”

“Could-d-d she have gone down to them?”

“WHAT?”

“Ana,” Foxy said impatiently. “C-C-Could she have g-g-gone down to see what they were about-t-t? She might just b-b-be passing a b-b—BOTTLE O’ RUM—with ‘em.”

But Freddy rolled his eyes. “MAYBE. BUT. IT’S. NOT. DARK. ENOUGH. YET. TO. LEAVE. AND. LOOK. FOR. HER. SO. IN. THE. MEAN. TIME. JUST. HELP. ME. LOOK. FOR. HER. HERE. FIRST.”

“Maybe it would-d-d speed things along if ye t-t-told me—TALES OF THE SEA!—where ye thought-t-t she was.”

Freddy rolled his eyes again, but at least this time, he tried to hide it by rubbing at his brow. “I. HOPE. SHE’S. ON. THE. WOOF,” he said at last. “I. HOPE. SHE. JUST. GOT. CAUGHT. IN. WORK. AND. I. CAN’T. HEAR. HER. BECAUSE. THE. WIND. GETS. IN. MY. MICS. BUT. IF. SHE’S. NOT. SHE’S. SOMEWHERE. SHE. SHOULDN’T. BE.”

“If the only-ly-ly reason ye want to find-d-d her is to kill her, do it without me, mate.”

“IF. SHE’S. FOUND. A. WAY. DOWN. TO. HIM. SHE’S. ALREADY. DEAD.” Freddy lowered his hand and looked at Foxy without apology. “BUT. IF. HE’S. STILL. BUSY. WITH. HER. I. MIGHT. HAVE. A. CHANCE. TO. BERRY. HIM. AGAIN. BEFORE. HE. TELLS. ME. NOT. TO. AFTER. THAT. HE’S. OUT. AND. THERE. IS. NOTHING. I. CAN. DO.”

Foxy looked away, nodding, feeling at his anger until he could push it aside. “Where have ye looked-d-d?” 

“EVERY. WHERE.”

“Well, then, ye’d have found-d-d her, eh? So stop and think-k-k. She fallen through somewhere?”

“NO. I’VE. LOOKED. EVERY. WHERE. EXCEPT—” Freddy motioned curtly toward the stage, indicating the parts room behind it. “—ROOMS. THAT. I. CAN’T. OPEN.”

“But ye th-th-think she can?”

“I. THINK. I. CAN’T. FIND. HER,” Freddy shot back. “IF. I’VE. LOOKED. EVERY. WHERE. I. CAN. GO. AND. I. CAN’T. FIND. HER. WHAT. DOES. THAT. LEAVE. STOP. LOOKING. AT. ME. LIKE. THAT.”

“You check-k-k outside?”

Freddy recoiled slightly, blinking. “WHAT?”

“Ye say she ain’t-t-t fallen through anywhere inside. She fallen off the edge o’ the b-b—BILGERAT!—building?”

“I…” Freddy looked around, as if the walls had melted away and he could see the parking lot, here in the Cove. 

“Or the edge o’ the bluff?” Foxy pressed. “Ye know she g-g-gets a wee bit blurry when she gets working in the sun and ain’t-t-t had enough to eat. Maybe she went-t-t out for a piss and walked-d-d right off the drop.”

Freddy turned around.

“No, I’ll g-g-go,” said Foxy at once, moving past him. “If there’s running that needs d-d-doing, I can do it better than ye.” And if Mangle was singing to herself in her box, buried at the base of the bluff, there was no way Freddy would mistake her staticky voice for a distant radio playing out at the quarry or the shrilling of desert insects. Foxy wanted to find Ana. He would go as far as to say he was worried for her, but he still had secrets to keep.


	12. Chapter 12

# CHAPTER TWELVE

Ana wasn’t out long, to judge by the size of the sweat patch she pressed into the ratcake as she lay on it. She wasn’t even sure she went all the way under. She never lost full awareness of her surroundings (that almost would have been a blessing), she just gained new ones. She heard sounds as she lay fighting her way out of the void—tapping, rustling, the whine of Bonnie’s servos as he played his broken guitar, the soft lilt of Aunt Easter’s voice whispering as she used to do when Ana was having nightmares and needed soothing back to sleep—one flowing into another, washing in and fading slowly out again. She felt touches—spiders and rats and the Puppet’s claws and Bonnie’s kisses—all together, all at once. And then:

“Wake up, Honeybunny.”

Little Ana rolled over, scratching at the fuzzy blanket she lay on, but unable somehow to pull it up over her head, although she tried. She mumbled a question, unformed even in her own mind, one that was equal parts Where and Why and What, but not Who. Only one person had ever called her Honeybunny.

“You can’t stay here,” said Aunt Easter and that was true. She’d promised, though, or someone had. For now, Aunt Easter’s wonderful castle on the mountain was just for weekends and summers, but someday, they’d be a family and it would be forever. 

“When?” Ana muttered.

“You’re almost there,” said Aunt Easter or maybe it she said, “We’re almost there,” and she wasn’t in bed at all, waking up to have to go home at the end of a visit, but in the car and riding up the mountain for the start of one, and soon she’d see the light through the trees and then she and David would be running up the path together to the porch.

“No, no,” said Aunt Easter, her soft voice gently lifting Ana as she sank once more into dreams. “You have to wake up. Follow me, Honeybunny. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” Ana said, half in dreams, but waking up fast. Already she was awake enough to understand that not being afraid was exactly what got her into this situation and nothing to be proud of. 

Her aunt did not reply. She was never there.

Ana dragged her eyes open as soon as she could manage it, but of course, she was alone. Except for the rats and they didn’t count anymore. The dead ones didn’t, anyway. There was at least one live one somewhere; she could hear it somewhere in the duct, little sounds like dry leaves tumbling across a windowpane, but as long as it was moving away and not toward her, she wasn’t going to panic.

On Ana’s first attempt to push herself off the less-than-lovely bed on which she had nodded off, her hand snagged on the thing she’d thought was an arm, dragging it closer to her. Of course, it was not an arm, she could see that now, just a regular old rat’s nest decked out with the sorts of knickknacks rats bring home. What she had mistaken for knuckle-bones were just more rat bones, maybe mixed with bird or bat. The cavity of the nest was packed with feathers and shreds of stained cloth, wads of plushie stuffing, chewed-up posters and dry leaves, with rat shit mixed heavily throughout, like the scent-pearls in a bag of slightly more disgusting than normal organic potpourri.

Filling out the rest of the cavity were other rat-treasures, packed without rhyme or reason wherever they would fit, like a scaled-down version of Aunt Easter’s hoard. Small stuff, for the most part. Tiny Fazbear Band figures and plushie eyes, loose wires and plastic feathers Chica had broken off, gold and silver doubloons with Foxy’s face on them, arcade tokens stamped with Freddy’s top hat, tatters of cloth and shiny scraps of party hats. But there were larger items as well. An empty beer can. A pair of sunglasses. A stained sneaker that had done double-duty as a rat nursery to an ill-fated brood of ratlings. 

All of this Ana took in at an instant without really thinking about, but one thing did make her stop and really give the contents of the rat’s nest a closer look. Her mind first tried to tell her it was a giant fortune cookie, then a toy pyramid that had broken open halfway, before she understood she was looking at Chica’s beak.

Her credulity wavered, unable to visualize a rat wanting Chica’s beak, much less carrying it away, but regardless of her imagination, the beak was here in front of her. When she picked it out of the nest and brushed off the clinging shreds of tat and crap, it was solid in her hand. A little scratched up, but all in one piece. She could have it back on Chica’s face in no time, as soon as she was out of here.

If she ever got out of here, she reminded herself, but that thought was a long time coming. All her thoughts were starting to stretch out a bit and fray around the edges. It was too hot and the air was so dead and still. She began to wonder if she had actually woken up from her faint at all, or if this was just some dream. Even more dreamlike and unreal, she could still hear the rat, its tiny claws scratching up the walls far back in the maze as if it wanted her to hear it.

Wait a second…

Okay, that was crap, the wanting-her-to-hear-it bit, but if there was really a rat and not just a figment of her overheated imagination, that might actually be good news. It was impossible to spend years fixing up old houses and not learn a few things about rats; for example, that the males of the species were constantly pissing as they scampered through the walls, so they always had a scent-trail to follow in the dark if they needed a quick escape. In short, rats could not get lost. If she followed this one, it might lead her out. It might lead her to the new nest, too, but if there was ever a time for optimism, it was now.

To think, that she had reached a point in her life where ‘follow that incontinent rat’ was her most optimistic prospect. 

Ana tucked the beak into her shirt to keep her hands free and went after it.

It was quiet again when she found her way back to the intersection with the shaft at the middle, but as if the rat had been waiting for her, as soon as she said, “Now where are you, you little son of a bitch?” it started moving again. She didn’t see it—she never saw it—but her glowstick didn’t have much of a reach. She could hear it, that was the important thing. It did not squeal or in any way act like a panicked animal that knew it was being pursued, but it always made just enough noise to lead her on, lead her out.

If she’d ever had a sense of direction, she quickly lost it, but if anything, her spirits rose. She expected at every turn to see light at the end of this narrow tunnel, even though she knew the sun had surely set by now. Certainty gave her strength; every time she turned a corner and did not see light, she crawled faster. Her unseen guide, the rat, sped up correspondingly and in mere seconds, she could no longer hear it at all. What she heard instead, beyond the rasp of her own breath and the wet slap of her palms on the padding, was the faint river-like rushing sound of air in the ducts. And it was cooler here, surely that wasn’t her imagination. 

She really was almost out.

And then it happened. She turned a corner and discovered a blockade of the most random crap, like another rat’s nest if the rat had been the size of a bear—lengths of carpet wadded up like tissues and rammed into the duct, packed solid with pizza boxes, plushies, a puffy pink kid-sized coat, dozens of musty books from the reading room, and a crushed up cardboard standee of Freddy Fazbear himself—but she could see through it in places. Beyond the blockade was a vent and through that vent came a breeze, weak and stinking of the quarry but cooler and fresher than the air inside the maze. 

“Oh, thank God,” she croaked, dragging herself over that last mile of rubber padding to attack this last obstacle with all that was left of her strength. Unfortunately, although the ductwork itself was intact, enough moisture had come in through this open vent to get a nice crop of mold growing in all those fertile carpet fibers. It wasn’t rotten enough to tear, but was just too heavy to move and even with her face smashed right up against its slimy, stinking surface, she couldn’t slither out over it.

As she stared, trying to figure out what to do next, she heard Bonnie’s voice, indistinct, and the low rumble of Freddy’s reply. “I’m in here!” she yelled. “Help! I’m stuck!”

Her voice was dry, wrung, and she’d never learned how to yell anyway. He couldn’t have heard her. She could barely hear her. No one was coming to rescue her. If she was getting out of this mess at all, she was just going to have to get herself out.

Ana dug into the carpet again, pulling, pushing, wriggling, climbing, and finally managed to drag herself far enough over its reeking bulk that she could get her back against the duct wall and kick the rest of it away, clearing the vent. Like the one in the security room, it was on hinges and opened at even a weak push, allowing her to see the room beyond at last.

The party room. She’d been hoping for Kiddie Cove, with its thickly padded surfaces, but she supposed it could be worse. She could have as easily come out in the gym, thirty feet up over a poured concrete floor. Or in the parts room, with no way to open the doors at all and no other option than to crawl back up into the maze and try again. So yeah, the party room wasn’t great, but it was out.

After some contortions, Ana backed out of the vent and lowered herself down, but her arms couldn’t hold her and her legs couldn’t take the landing. She hit the floor hard, rocked back and knocked her head, then just lay there, staring at the stars through the beams and the ductwork and the clouds.

Was it over? It didn’t feel over…

With the wall’s help, Ana climbed to her feet and waited. Her knees eventually stabilized, but she still felt dreamlike, disconnected. Overheated, she decided. Maybe low blood sugar, definitely dehydrated. Top priority now was to get a bottle of water in her. Then she could get a shower and if that went well, something to eat. 

Just having a plan made her feel better. Ana tottered toward the door, all her concentration focused on putting one foot in front of the other and not letting the shakes out, because the last thing she wanted to do tonight was explain to Bonnie what was wrong and the odds that she was about to open this door and find him waiting for her down at the boarded-up exit next to Tux were extremely good.

In fact, Ana so expected to see Bonnie at the end of the hall that she actually did for a second or two, her exhausted brain pulling out the ears and pushing in the snout of the animatronic she did see, making her see Bonnie. “God damn it,” she muttered, just like it was him that had annoyed her, when in truth it was the intensity of her relief at seeing him, her shame at _needing_ to see him. 

She headed toward him, moving fast, angry, pretending it was him she was angry at, knowing when she got there, she’d only end up in his arms, wanting to be there already so bad that she still couldn’t see it wasn’t Bonnie. His head turned and it wasn’t Bonnie’s head. He took his hand off the pushbar and raised his other arm, the one that didn’t end in a hand, and still it took his eyes coming on—one glowing white, the other yellow—before she really saw him.

Her feet rooted.

“Ana,” said Foxy. He laughed once; the sound had no humor in it, only anger and relief. “Coo, woman, where have ye b-b-been?”

She didn’t answer. When he moved toward her, she backed up. A part of her knew she was being silly, that one animatronic was essentially just like the others, but she didn’t want to talk to Foxy, she wanted Bonnie. 

“Ana?” Foxy started toward her again and again, she backed away.

“Leave me alone,” she said, or tried to say. Her throat hurt, choking off her words. Whatever sound she managed, she couldn’t hear through the sudden pounding of her heart as the panic she’d kept firmly at arm’s distance all the time she’d been trapped in the maze now took her. Stupid to panic now. Stupid to panic at all, but especially now, when it was over.

But it wasn’t over. It wasn’t over until Bonnie hugged her and told her it was over. What…? What was that? What did that even mean? A freaking toy rabbit! When had this happened? She’d held it together all her life, escaped this town, survived her mother, and she’d done it all alone. How had she managed to lose so much of herself in the short time she’d been back that she needed anyone, much less a giant talking toy that could never feel anything for her no matter what he was programmed to say.

She was alone here.

Foxy was talking to her. She couldn’t seem to listen to the words, but his tone seemed soothing in a piratey way. His facial scanners must have told him she was sad. She supposed she ought to smile, tell him she was all right however many times it took to convince him, or her, but she didn’t. She turned around.

Foxy took her arm.

“Leave me alone,” she said again, trying to pull free.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Ana? Are ye hurt-t-t?”

“Let go of me.”

Foxy’s gaze shifted from her face to her hair and then her clothes. “What is all this?” he asked, picking a clump of webbing and dried insect husks off her shirt with a practiced flick of his hook. “Where the hell—”

“I said, let _go!_ ” snapped Ana and before she knew it, she’d slapped him.

His lower jaw went crooked. He had to release her to catch it and snap it back into place while Ana walked away, but as soon as he’d put himself right, he came after her.

Before he could grab at her again, Ana spun and went on the attack, slapping and shoving as often as she could while she still had the advantage of surprise, which was not long. Foxy backed up, blinking, tried twice to say her name, and then swatted her flailing arm aside and snarled, “Knock-k-k it off! I got enough cracks in me c-c-casing without yer help!”

“Then don’t touch me!”

“Don’t walk-k-k—THE PLANK—away from me!” he shot back.

She walked away from him and at the first sound of him following, she ran.

“I’m g-g-going to bloody kill her,” she heard him say, almost conversationally, and then he ran after her.

He was too fast. The door to the dining room was just ahead, but she’d never make it before he caught her. She darted through the only door she could reach, the party room—right back like she’d never left. His metal feet skidded on the tiles as he tried to stop, giving her just enough time to shut the door on him and throw all her weight against it to keep him out.

The wind blew, moaning as it split around the beams and ducts above her, but still she could hear him pacing in the hall and imagined she could feel his glare even through the wall.

At last, after some subdued growls and mutters, he tapped his hook with obvious restraint against the door three times. “Open up.”

Ana shook her head, which he could neither see nor hear and she knew it.

“Ye think-k-k I’m going to stand out here all night-t-t gently talking ye into it and ye are dead-d-d wrong. I ain’t yer loverbunny. Open up.”

Ana did not answer, except to adjust her grip on the latch and set her foot more firmly against the bottom of the door.

_Bang_ went his hook.

Ana waited.

“Ye got to the count of—” BANG, this time as Foxy’s foot hit the door, forcing it wide open and knocking Ana on her butt, scraping her elbows as she sprawled across the chipped tiles, staring up at him. “—I ain’t c-c-counting,” he snarled, advancing on her. “Ye d-d-don’t have to talk to me and ye don’t have t-t-to listen when I talks, but if’n ye shuts a d-d-door on me, ye’d best be d-d-damned sure it ain’t one I can knock d-d-down!”

Ana sat up, her lips pressed tight together, looking at the baseboard instead of him.

Foxy glared at her a moment or two longer, then raised his eyepatch and looked the room over. Even after she’d cleaned this room out, there was plenty left to see—old posters and painted murals, stage props, two tables and a stack of chairs that looked too good to just throw out—but Foxy’s eye went straight to the wall behind her, and of all the decay that had settled on this building over the years, he saw the single scuff-mark her boot had left behind climbing out of the vent.

She did not explain it. He didn’t ask her to. When he looked at her again, it was without confusion, although he still asked a question:

“How long were ye up there?”

Ana checked her watch. The numbers floated behind their tiny glass screen, slow to take on meaning. “Three hours,” she whispered. It took all her breath. She pulled in another, then another, and with the third, the full scope of what had happened—what might have happened—slammed into her.

Foxy saw it hit. Before she could say a word, he was across the room and picking her up off the floor as impersonally as a dropped broom, thumping her on her feet and against the wall. “Don’t ye d-d-do it,” he told her, very quietly. “I see that-t-t scream in yer eyes. Don’t ye dare let-t-t it out, or ye’ll have Bon beating down—TO DAVY JONES!—the door and Freddy right-t-t behind him.”

“I don’t scream,” said Ana, as mechanically as if he’d pulled a string on her back. “I didn’t even try. You never knew I was there, did you?”

Foxy looked at the vent, then up and along the twisted pathways of the ducts as if she were still there, needing to be found and saved.

“No one did,” said Ana. “No one knows I’m here. That’s the point, isn’t it? Of all of this. That no one knows I’m here when I do it. And that’s the stupidest thing, that…that’s so stupid. Mind-fuckingly stupid. I could have died up there!”

“Aye, ye could have,” growled Foxy, giving her a painful squeeze to punctuate it before he released her. “But ye d-d-didn’t. Yer an ijit-t-t, but yer a lucky one and yer all right.”

“I’m an idiot,” she echoed, shaking her head. “You have no idea. It’s not an air duct, Foxy. It was never an air duct. There’s no air in it. I thought I was going to die.”

“Keep yer voice d-d-down. Yer fine.”

“You are not getting it!” she insisted. “I could have died! It’s full of fucking dead things who all thought they were fine!”

“I said, k-k-keep yer voice—” He blinked. “Dead? Like what?”

“Rats and birds and…and…I don’t know. Cats. Raccoons. I don’t know! It’s all baked down to mummy meat and fur now. It’s an oven. Not an air duct, an oven! I was cooking in there. I was cooking alive. I could smell it. I was basting, Foxy. Like a fucking turkey. Look at me.” Ana thrust out her trembling arms, still pink, dull with dried sweat. “I couldn’t breathe. I was sweating…I was pouring sweat, you have no idea. I think I’ve lost, like, ten pounds. Look.” She caught at her t-shirt, pulling it out of her jeans so that she could show off her ribs and Chica’s beak, which she had entirely forgotten, fell out and landed on her foot. “Oh,” she said, as Foxy bent and picked it up. “Yeah. I found that. It’s Chica’s, isn’t it?”

“Aye, it is,” said Foxy, frowning as he turned it over in his hands. “Ye found-d-d it up there? Where?”

“It was in a rat’s nest. Biggest fucking rat’s nest I’ve ever seen. No lie. Big as I am. Bigger. Full of stuff. Dead things and stuff. They were all cooked flat, hundreds of rats. I almost died there. Pretty sure I passed out. I was hallucinating and everything. I was so close to dying.”

“Oi, be d-d-done with that bilge, lass,” Foxy said firmly. “Yer out now. Yer fine.”

“Yeah, that’s what I always say, isn’t it? I’m fine, I’m fine. Well, look at me!” She flung out both arms and looked down at herself—at her clothes stuck to her body by sweat, dusted over with rat fur and spider webs. “I am so fucking far from fine!”

“Ana…ye know what-t-t?” He folded his arms and leaned up against the wall. “Just get it out o’ yer system. Ye ain’t fine.”

“I’m not!”

“Yer a d-d-damn fool.”

“I am! What was I thinking? Who crawls into…into fucking air ducts in an abandoned building _miles_ out of town in the first place? I would never do that! That’s insane! What, am I trying to kill myself?” Her rising voice broke off short. She looked at him, wide-eyed. “Am I? Oh Jesus, Foxy, am I really? I don’t want to die here. Tell me I didn’t come back to this Godforsaken place just to die!”

“Why not? It’s as g-g-good a reason as any, ain’t it?”

She stared at him, incredulity rising like a bubble and popping foolishly out as: “You’re not supposed to say that.”

Foxy shrugged. “Sorry, luv. I d-d-didn’t get a script. What’s me line?”

“I could have died!”

“I thought-t-t that was yer line.”

“What is wrong with you? I got lost. I couldn’t breathe. It was so hot. Everything else is dead up there. I thought I was going to die too and no one would ever find me!”

“Aye. So ye said. And?”

“And I thought I was going to die,” she said again, amazed that he could keep missing this point. “I could have. I should have. My God, do you know how many times I’ve almost died since coming back to this town? I can’t stay here.”

“Woman, ye t-t-took our roof off. Yer staying at least-t-t long enough to put it back-k-k on.”

“You don’t understand. I _can’t_. This town is trying to kill me. It _wants_ to kill me.” She let out a high, shaky laugh. “And I want to let it.”

“So ye had a b-b-bad scare,” Foxy said bluntly. “It’s over now. It’s d-d-done. Pick yerself up-p-p and hie on. Ye want a hug?”

“Not from you.”

His expression made the subtle shift from impatience to irritation. “Oi, I’m at least-t-t as huggable as that big-eared milk-livered giglet yer so k-k-keen on. Never mind-d-d all that,” he snapped, as much to himself as to her, perhaps. “Get a g-g-grip on yerself, is all I’m saying. Ye d-d-did something stupid, ye lived to tell the t-t-t—TALES OF THE SEA!—tale, so learn from it and leave it behind ye.”

“Oh, just get a grip, huh?” Ana said, knowing what he was telling her and twisting it out of shape anyway. It wasn’t a fair response, not to anyone, much less a giant talking toy with next to no experience comforting an upset customer, but Ana didn’t want to be fair right now. She wanted to be angry, the only anchor she knew how to use when she felt herself adrift. If he’d been a man, she would have swallowed it all, kept silent, got away and maybe gotten high until she forgot how any of this felt, but he wasn’t a man. He was an animatronic, the perfect training dummy for her unpracticed emotional outbursts, and so she got right up in his plastic face and said, “There are more important things to worry about right now, is that it? Get over it and get your stupid self back to work, right? You don’t even care, do you?”

Foxy’s eyes turned black. “Of course I bloody care!” he snarled, shoving her back seemingly just so he could mimic her and step up close. “I’d have b-b-been after ye like a shot-t—ACROSS THE BOW!—if’n I’d known where ye were! I’d have pulled ye out-t-t kicking and cursing before ye ever knew to b-b-be afraid! And I’d have t-t-told ye it was a stupid thing ye’d done while ye rolled-d-d yer damn eyes at me! What I would-d-d have done don’t matter! What matters now is that-t-t ye do not leave this room in a flitty-git panic talking about how ye almost d-d-died!” He caught a double-hold of the neck of her shirt, tearing it both where his metal hand gripped and his hook pierced it, and yanked her right up to his snout. “ _Ye are not supposed-d-d to be here!_ ” he hissed through a speaker full of static. “Give Freddy a reason and ye won’t-t-t be! And I care about-t-t that, ye damn fool! Right-t-t here, right now, the only thing I c-c-care about is you!”

Ana stared, silent.

Slowly, Foxy’s pupils opened and his eyes became his own again. He let go of her shirt, freed his hook, and stepped back. “We all d-d-do,” he said gruffly. “Even Fred, whether he wants t-t-to admit it or not. But that won’t stop-p-p him from…from putting ye out. Ye hear me?”

She nodded.

They looked at each other while the wind blew clouds over the sky, shutting off the stars one by one, until the only light left came from his eyes.

“Come on,” he said at last and turned around. “Freddy wouldn’t-t-t want ye in here.”

Ana followed him mutely out into the West Hall. When he turned toward Pirate Cove, so did she, although her destination was the door next to headless Tux. After so many hours lost in the cramped, airless passages of the ductwork maze, she needed to be outside. 

Foxy knew she was following him, even if he didn’t acknowledge it. At the mouth of the short corridor that led to the Cove, he stopped, straightened his shoulders, and turned to face her. “There’s a lot o’ things ye can count-t-t on me for,” he said before Ana could ask him to move so she could get at the door. “But don’t count on me to b-b-be yer conscience, luv. I ain’t g-g-going to tell ye no.”

Ana studied him—his serious expression, his unflinching stare—as thoughts of ‘Get over yourself,’ receded and something else took its place. Whatever it was, it had no words, but like him, its outer skin was cracked and she could see the glint of other shapes beneath. 

Once more, she considered the possibility that none of this was happening and she was still passed out on the ratcake up in the ducts, baking to death in a coma. It was an oddly attractive notion now. She knew more or less how to deal with that. This…this was new.

“No to what?” she asked warily. “What do you think I’m asking for?”

And while he visibly tried to think up an answer to that, the door to the dining room at the far end of the hall opened and Freddy came through it. He stopped. His ears pivoted toward them. His eyes lit up. For a moment, he was as perfectly still as one of his posters.

“Shit,” said Ana. “Hi.”

Music blasted out of him, coinciding with a gust of wind so that his anger seemed to fly down the hall and physically slap her in the face.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Freddy bellowed, far too cheerfully for his expression. 

“In the maze,” said Ana, but before she could say more, Foxy dropped a hand on her shoulder and added, “Aye, found her in me own t-tr-treasure cave, curled up in a c-c-corner, safe as houses and sound as a b-b-bell.”

She looked at him. He did not take his eyes off Freddy, so she looked back at Freddy, too.

Freddy’s internal fan pulled in an extra-deep breath and blew it out through his joints in a drawn-out sigh. The Toreador March slowed and lowered in volume and finally shut itself off. “WHY?” he asked, still glaring, but not suspiciously.

“It was too hot,” said Ana. “It’s cooler down there and quiet. I didn’t mean to nod off, but I guess I did. Why?” she countered. “Something wrong?”

Freddy’s answer was a grunt and a grumble before he headed back into the dining room. “BONNIE. SHE’S. BACK.”

“Aye and that’s me c-c-cue,” muttered Foxy as Bonnie crashed through the door Freddy had only just cleared. “Well, ye’ve g-g-got a big weekend planned, lass. Don’t reckon ye’ll find-d-d—BURIED TREASURE—much time for me until it’s d-d-done, but if ye should-d-d find yerself light o’ company some night—”

“Foxy,” she said, although even as she said it, she had no idea what she intended to tell him.

And he didn’t wait for her to figure it out.

“—come and see me,” he finished, switching off his eyes and slipping away into the dark of the Cove.

In the next instant, Bonnie was there to sweep her up in one of his twitchy, careful hugs and she forgot about Foxy for a while, but she thought a lot about him later, during those long uncounted minutes between Bonnie tucking her in and the moment her unquiet sleep took her.


	13. Chapter 13

# CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ana dreamed of endless crawling through a maze of ducts, pursued by some unseen thing that seemed at times to be a swarm of rats and sometimes a giant version of Plushtrap and sometimes, the worst times, a broken animatronic endoskeleton with her mother’s skin wrapped around it and stuffed with dead leaves and wires. As with all dreams of that sort, no matter how fast she crawled, it was just a little faster, closing the distance between them until she could see her shadow growing long before her as its eyelight burned on her back and feel the vibrations of its heavy body lurching and banging just behind her. Then its hand closed on her ankle—metal bones and gnawing rat-teeth—and she fell on her face, clawing in desperation at the rubbery pad as it dragged her back toward its jaws. She began to scream, proof this was just a dream, and it screamed back at her in many voices made of static and screeching and Freddy’s cheerful baritone singing—

Singing?

“ _GOOD MORNING, GOOD MORNING, GOOD MORNING TO YOU! OUR DAY IS BEGINNING, THERE’S SO MUCH TO DO!_ ”

Ana opened her eyes, disorientated to find herself in the curtained safety of her ‘room’ beneath the table in the dining room and not the ductwork maze. Was this a new chapter of the dream? No, she was definitely awake; she had the bruises, the full bladder and the headache to prove it. But the animatronics were singing and that meant…

Stunned, Ana pushed the curtain aside and immediately had to throw up her hand as a shield against the sun’s rays. The actual sun, not just its diffused light, peeking in at her over the roofless walls.

“No!” But Ana’s watch dispassionately told her, ‘Yes.’ It was eleven o’clock.

Her headache instantly got worse.

“Bonnie!” Ana groaned, snatching at her jeans as she kick-clawed her way out from under the table. “How could you?” she demanded, glaring at Bonnie as he sang and twitched and strummed his stringless guitar. “You had one job! Wake me up before you go to sleep!”

Bonnie twitched harder, stuttering out of sync with the others.

“You know what kind of time-crunch I’m under,” she complained, yanking up her jeans and trying to step into her boots at the same time. “I just lost five hours, thanks to you! Half a fucking day! God!”

Freddy lowered his microphone, mid-verse, and said, “DON’T. YELL. AT. HIM.”

“I’m not yelling and why not?” she added, turning on him with a glare every bit as fierce as his. “Should I be yelling at you instead? Did you tell him not to wake me up?”

“PUT. YOUR. CLOSED. ON.”

Ana glanced at the sports bra she’d been using for a pajama top, rolled her eyes and stomped over to the other side of her table to check her cardboard cubbies. No clean shirts. She picked through the dirty ones, sniffing until she found one she could stand to put on. She needed to make a laundry run, but not today, obviously. No time to drive to the laundromat or enjoy a hot breakfast at Gallifrey’s. Eleven o’clock. Jesus. “You did, didn’t you?” she grumbled. “You told him not to wake me.”

“YOU. NEEDED. TO. SLEEP.”

“No, asshole, I need to get the fucking roof on! And you seem to think I have all the time in the fucking world to do it!”

Freddy’s eyelids slanted slowly down. “DO. NOT. TALK. TO. ME. LIKE. THAT.”

“I’ll talk to you any way I want! Apparently, it doesn’t even matter what I say around here because you’ll just do whatever you feel like doing and to hell with me. Do you understand that I am not supposed to be here? That I am breaking the goddamn law?”

“YES.”

“Kids have always come out to fuck around at the quarry. There will never be a time when I can count on not being seen when I’m up on your roof. Got that? And do you understand that this kind of work is noisy and cannot be hidden? Can! Not! Do you?”

“DON’T. YELL. AT. ME.”

“Do you understand that the next opportunity to use fireworks as cover is in fucking January when there could be three fucking feet of snow on the ground? Excuse me,” she interrupted herself sourly and then shouted, “ _On the fucking floor!_ ”

Freddy looked up, but not at the roof or the lack of one. His expression was a perfect plastic facsimile of Rider’s God-give-me-strength-not-to-slap-a-bitch stare. “YOU. NEEDED. SLEEP,” he said when he dropped his gaze to her again.

“No, I don’t. That is why I have a can of coffee and half a case of Redline in the other room! You know what else I don’t need? I don’t need a goddamn babysitter! You want the roof on?”

“YES.”

“Then let me do it and stop trying to control me!”

“I’M. NOT.”

“Horseshit.” Ana yanked her day pack over and slapped through it until she found a bottle of aspirin. Her head was killing her. Heat-hangover, courtesy of last-night’s excursion through the maze, but knowing what it was didn’t make it any easier to bear. She dry-swallowed two pills, grimaced, then swallowed two more.

“WHAT IS THAT?”

“None of your business.” Ana dropped the aspirin back in her pack and stirred through the other contents as a physical proxy for her internal effort to scrape up an appetite for cold pop-tarts and lukewarm energy drinks. She was tempted to skip breakfast entirely, but she’d done too much of that lately.

“AN-N-A.”

“What?”

“AN-N-A.”

“I said, what! What do you want, bear? What?”

He didn’t say anything more, not until Ana turned around and faced him. Bonnie and Chica had stopped singing by now, but were still onstage, playing the music that went with the song Freddy seemed to have forgotten he was supposed to be singing. He looked at her, his expression mostly frustrated, but mixed with something else, something she didn’t recognize. Whatever it was, seeing it made her feel oddly defensive, so that when he finally said, “I. DON’T. WANT. TO. UPSET. YOU. I’M. TRYING. TO. TAKE. CARE. OF. YOU,” she did not receive it well.

“Freddy, for fuck’s sake!” She stopped there, massaging at her aching head until that first flare of irrational anger had died away to coals. When she thought she was calm, she dropped her hand and said, “There was a time when I would have let you. But you—” She surprised herself with a laugh, short and harsh, but heartfelt. “You did not want the job. And twenty years later is too goddamn late to change your mind.”

God knew what else she might have said. Maybe it was the headache or maybe it was the previous night’s brush with death, but after keeping it bottled up her entire life, with those words came the urge to tell Freddy exactly what he’d done to her and never mind that this was a completely different Freddy at a completely different restaurant. He had the name, he had the hat; he was close enough. And it would feel good, the classic better-than-sex kind of good, to rip off her shirt in front of him, not to hide her scars for once in her life but to put them on display with the sun shining down like God’s own spotlight, to force him to look at them while she said, while she shouted, ‘This was what she did to me, you son of a bitch, while you stood there and _watched_! Now you want to take care of me? Fuck you, Freddy!’

She could see herself doing it, taste the words in her mouth, feel that first euphoric rush riding the throb of her headache, and she almost did it, but then her phone rang.

She looked at her day pack, conflicted, and when it rang again, it was too late. You couldn’t take a call and then have a huge vindicating emotional outburst with an animatronic teddy bear and come across as anything but stupid. Neither could you have that outburst and pretend the phone wasn’t ringing in the background. She supposed she should feel grateful she hadn’t gotten as far as taking her shirt off before the phone rang, because then she’d have to awkwardly put it back on again.

Glaring at Freddy, who was still not performing, Ana dug her phone out to see who it was. Shelton Contractors.

“Shitbiscuits,” she muttered and thumbed the green phone icon. “Yes?”

“Well, good morning to you, too, little miss,” said Shelly in his goodest and boyest good-ol-boy voice. “Just thought I’d call and see how your vacation’s coming along.”

“My…what?”

“I don’t mean to rush your return, but I’ve got a lot on my plate this weekend, it being the Fourth, and I could sure use your help.”

Ana instinctively shot Freddy an are-you-hearing-this glance, only to discover he might actually be hearing it. His gaze had shifted to the phone and his ears rotated slightly inward, eavesdropping. “Hang on,” she said and covered the speaker with her thumb. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you listening to other people’s conversations is rude?”

“I. DON’T. HAVE. A. MOTHER.”

“Sure, rub it in.” Ana glanced behind her, then said, “We’re done, get back to your show,” and went through the plastic at the rear of the room into the South Hall and from there, out onto the playground. She walked to the farthest corner, leaned up against the chainlink fence and put the phone back to her ear. “Okay, I’m here,” she said. “But what is this about, for real now? Is this a joke?”

“I do not joke around when it comes to my business,” said Shelly, and in that, at least, he sounded sincere. “When am I going to see you again, missy?”

“First thing in the morning on the fifth of Never,” said Ana, baffled. “I walked out on you! Or you threw me out, if that’s how you want to spin it. Whatever story you’re telling, I’ll play along, but the happy ending is, I do not work for you anymore.”

“What? Oh no, no no no. We have us a little misunderstanding. See, what I thought happened was, you were under some stress, what with the work piling up at home, and I was under some stress, what with having more manpower than jobs at the moment, and so we agreed you should take a few days—”

“Before you get too carried away with this story, you might want to remember that you had my truck towed,” Ana interrupted. “That came with a two hundred and fifty dollar ticket.”

“Which you did not have to pay, as I hear it.”

“Whether I had to pay it or not, you tried to stick me with it! There was no misunderstanding. I honestly don’t care whether you fired me or I quit, but the fact remains, you called me a whore, I called you an asshole, and we parted company. What do you want?”

A long silence ended in a short sigh. “I want to talk about…how that happened.”

“I know how it happened. I was there.”

“Well then, I want to talk about what happens next.”

“Nothing, as far as you and I are concerned.”

“Look. Maybe you don’t know it, or maybe you do,” he added with pointed meaning, “but you walking out put my balls under the boot. So let’s you and I meet and talk this out in a civilized fashion. That way, if you say no and walk out again, I can say I did my best.”

“How about I say no right here over the phone? Why do I have to stop what I’m doing just to stroke your conscience?”

“What is it going to take for you to unknot your drawers and listen to me?” He heaved another curt sigh into the receiver. “I’ll buy you dinner.”

“Say fucking what?” she snapped. “I buy my own dinners, jackhat! I don’t sell my time or any other goddamn part of me for the price of a fucking burger!” 

“That isn’t what I—You know what, missy? I got better things to do than this, so here’s how it’s going to be. I’ll be at Gallifrey’s at six o’clock tonight. If you get over your monthlies before then, you’re welcome to join me and we’ll have us a professional talk. If you don’t, that’s fine too, and I wish you all the best of luck finding another job, because you are going to need it.”

He hung up with the enviable bang of a landline receiver slamming into the cradle, while Ana had to settle for poking END extra-hard and then poking it again because her touch-screen didn’t register it the first time.

She didn’t have time to stand out here and fume. Ana went back inside, stopping in the kitchen just long enough for a can of Redline and a bottle of water, then went to the quiet room to get her toolbelt. The day was literally half-gone and she’d done nothing with it except piss people off. 

Some days, it just wasn’t worth crawling out from under the table.

# * * *

Ana worked inside most of that day, but Bonnie still didn’t see much of her. At first, he thought she was avoiding him, that she didn’t want to see him because she was still mad about this morning, so he let her have her space. He told himself it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. Even between sets, his available dialogue options were limited. He could say he was sorry, but not what for, and the more he tried to force a workaround, the more likely he was to burst into song.

So he left her alone, but when his programmed path forced him into the craft room after the five o’clock set, she was there with all the walls off, doing something to one of the posts. 

“Watch your feet,” she said as soon as he opened the door. Then she looked around, saw him, and instantly swore, smiled, and jumped up to clear the floor of tools and debris. “Sorry, it’s a mess. I didn’t think you had another crafting set until five. Shit, it’s five-forty. Where the hell has the day gone? Can you get in okay?”

“HI THERE!” Bonnie said, shivering as he tried to nod. “I’M YOUR BEST BUDDY, BONNIE THE BUNNY! WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”

“I kind of took over the table,” said Ana apologetically, pointing at the array of work-related objects occupying the craft table. “Can you work around me or do you need me to leave?”

“STAY AND PLAY! THE FUN’S JUST STARTING!”

“Great, because I don’t want to leave. I was supposed to be done with this before noon. Well,” she amended, going back to work, “technically, I was supposed to be done with this last week. It’s not Freddy’s fault I’m so far behind.”

“WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON?” he asked, triggered by her hunched posture and the movements of her arms.

“I was taking out the moldy sheetrock and found a couple bad studs, and you know what they say: When you’re not sure whether they’re load-bearing or not, always proceed like they are. So it took longer than I thought it would to change them out, but I’m almost done.”

“WOW, THAT’S REALLY GOOD!”

“Yeah, I know it looks like suck, but bear with me. I’ll come back and finish it after the roof’s on. And here’s another one,” she muttered. “Hey, Bon?”

“HI THERE! I’M YOUR BEST BUDDY, BONNIE THE BUNNY!”

“Do you know what this is?” Ana asked, tapping what looked and sounded like a metal post set among all the wooden ones inside the wall.

Bonnie shook his head, surprised more by Ana’s expectation that he’d know how buildings were put up than the appearance of the post itself. The pizzeria was like his guitar; he’d spent years alongside it, knew every line and crack, and still had no idea how it was made. 

“I don’t see an outlet…and the camera’s over there…” she murmured, frowning as she looked it up and down. “Nothing’s hooked up to it. It’s just standing there. Holding up the ducts,” she concluded, having reached the top of the post where it joined the crawlway. And then she squinted. “Wait, what is that? Bonnie, can you lift me up?”

Could he? He flipped internally through various long-dormant options and cautiously nodded. “DO YOU WANT A BUNNY-BACK RIDE?”

She started to nod, then suddenly laughed and looked at him, her eyes sly and shiny. “That depends. Are we taking turns?”

Images entirely inappropriate to the time of day and his kid-friendly programming lit up his mind’s eye and set off a series of behavioral exceptions. He twitched.

“Well, you give me one now,” said Ana, waving him over, once more all business, “and maybe I’ll give you one later. We’ll work it out. Can you do something with your ears, my man?”

He folded them forward over his face and turned around, hunkering to make it easier for her to climb his back. She went all the way up, settling on his shoulders and holding on to his muzzle for balance. She giggled as he straightened up to his full height, but the sound was strained, nervous. “ARE YOU HAVING FUN?” he asked, finding a grip on her ankles and squeezing lightly to let her know he had her.

“I’m not afraid of heights, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve just never done this before. It feels weird, letting someone else…” She sat quietly for a time after trailing off, then bent over to look him in the eye, smiling again. “You’ve got such broad, strong shoulders.”

His ears flicked up, smacking her in the face before he could get control of them and fold them down again.

“And such a handsome smile,” she said, but now she was distracted by her examinations of the place where the post met the ducts. “There’s something here.”

“WHAT IS IT?”

“Hell if I know. They’re welded together, but there’s definitely a casing of some sort between them. Hmm. All right, put me down.”

He did and she left without a word, but came back a few minutes later with a few more tools.

“I should have done this a long time ago,” she declared, laying them out on the table. “Keep an eye out for Freddy, would you? Not sure he’d approve of what I’m about to do.”

“WHAT?” asked Bonnie, peering out into the hall. Empty, for the moment, but Freddy was always around. 

He heard a sound, like a dull whump mixed with a puff of air, and when he looked back, Ana was standing by the metal post with a small blowtorch in her hand. She winked at him, pulled her safety goggles over her eyes, and turned to the wall.

It didn’t take her long, less than two minutes, but those were two of the longest minutes of Bonnie’s life, waiting for Freddy to pop out of the dark like the damned Puppet itself and find his girl cutting holes in the building. Freddy wouldn’t kill her for something like that…surely not…but Bonnie wasn’t keen to see just where Ana’s line was drawn these days. He kept watch, one ear scanning the hall while he kept the other aimed back at Ana until the low hiss/hum of the torch silenced. 

“Okay,” she murmured. She put the torch down, gave the hole a few squirts from her can of compressed air until the red glow around its edges turned black, then got up and left again.

While she was gone, Freddy walked by on patrol. He grunted a questioning sort of greeting as he passed—Bonnie attempted a casual wave, like he hid behind barely open doors all the time—but didn’t stop to talk. As Bonnie strained his mics to listen over the intermittent gusts of wind, he heard Freddy grunt again further down the hall, then the rumble of his voice raised in a question, but Ana did not reply. All he heard of her was her returning footsteps. 

“He notice?” she asked, slipping into the room with a coil of black cable in one hand and her tablet under her arm.

Bonnie shook his head, taking a last peek out into the hall. Freddy was standing down by the pig’s signpost, looking back at him. Bonnie awkwardly waved again and closed the door. He wanted to ask if they were still fighting—not that either one of them would call it that, but if the years living with Foxy had taught him nothing else, it had taught him how to fight without talking or touching—but the closest he could come was, “ARE YOU OKAY?”

“Yeah, sure. Hold this.” She handed him the tablet, which was running through its start-up processes, so she could devote both hands to untangling her cable. “Haven’t used this in a year. I hope it still works.”

“WHAT IS IT?”

“It’s called a snake-cam. Well, technically, it’s called borescope. A flexible camera.”

“THAT’S A—” But he couldn’t say the next word and his thoughtless lapse sent him dangerously close to the black. His vision darkened; his hearing dimmed. He looked at her and for a moment, a bad moment, he did not see Ana at all. He didn’t even really see a person, only a thing that could be caught…

“Yep,” said the thing, growing darker and less distinct the nearer it came to him. “It’s got a little light on the end here and I’m going to snake it on up through that hole and get a look at whatever’s inside that case. Here, let me just…uh, let go, Bonnie.”

Bonnie. That was the name that resonated. He was Bonnie the Bunny, and as soon as he remembered that, he remembered Ana. He had to. He couldn’t be him without her.

He blinked and his eyes opened. 

“You okay?” asked Ana, frowning up at him.

He wasn’t sure, but he nodded. “WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF PIZZA?”

She rolled her eyes a little and took the tablet from him, plugging one end of her cable, her camera, into the device and thumbing a tiny control switch on the side. A very small, very bright light came on at the camera’s tip and at the same time, the image on the tablet’s screen changed from a black brick to a blurry mess of shapes and colors—Ana’s shirt and part of her face, out of focus.

“MINE’S PEPPERONI AND EXTRA CHEESE.”

“I like Chinese food,” she told him. “Tell Chica to whip me up a kung pao pizza and I’m all over that. Pepperoni, not so much. Okay. Let’s see what’s up there.”

Bonnie followed her to the wall and looked over her shoulder as she knelt down and fed lengths of camera-cable through the hole she’d cut in the metal post. 

Immediately, her brows furrowed. “What the fuck…? What is that?”

“WHAT IS IT?” Bonnie parroted.

Ana only shook her head. On the tablet, the picture was mainly dark. Whatever the post was made of—Bonnie suspected it was tungsten carbide, or at least the outer layer was—it was not reflective, but the camera’s little light caught glints of wire completely covering the inner surface in a tight diamond-weave pattern.

“You ever see anything like that before?” Ana asked, pushing the camera up further and seeing only more of the same stuff.

She was talking to herself, Bonnie could tell by the tone of her voice, so he didn’t bother to answer. And he didn’t have an answer anyway. It did look familiar, but not enough to be able to put a name to it. He could say the same of lots of things, things he saw every day, and this was just a tickle of recognition. He’d probably seen something like it way back in the basement at one of the other pizzerias, maybe even at the glass house where he’d been built. In fact, the more he watched those wires scroll by on the tablet’s screen, the stronger that sense of déjà vu became, not as if he’d seen the inside of a pipe like that before, but like he’d seen it magnified and on a computer screen.

She’d almost reached the top of the pipe. He could see a shape, some mechanism attached to the bottom of the crawlway or even projecting through it. Bonnie looked up, studying the shape of the crawlway for clues. The mechanism was significantly located at a place where three passages met. So it must be—

“That moves,” Ana murmured, peering at her tablet as she adjusted the focus of her camera. “I didn’t see anything up there that moved.”

Bonnie’s ears went up. She’d been in the crawlway? When? Stupidly, he tried to ask her, and instead shuddered out a hee-hawing laugh and said, “ART IS FUN! LET’S D-D-DO SOME CRAFTS!”

She didn’t answer. Now she was looking up, studying the intersection of the crawlway and then the picture on the tablet. “It’s a door,” she said.

“DO YOU LIKE TO C-C-COLOR?”

“That’s why I got so fucking lost so soon. I knew I was supposed to come to a four-way intersection first, not a T. I didn’t get lost. I hit a door.” She leaned back on her heels, her mouth slightly open, eyes glazed with wonder. “The maze changes.”

Okay, this was bad.

“DO YOU WANT TO COLOR IN A POSTER WITH ME?” Bonnie went to the supply wall, fighting every step because he knew the cupboards were empty. Too late. He watched helplessly as his twitching hand rose and pulled a drawer open. No posters; he sent out a wireless memo to maintenance that bounced right back at him and opened another drawer. “COME PICK OUT A MASK AND I’LL HELP YOU PUT IT TOGETHER! HEY, LET’S MAKE A COOL HAND PUPPET! HOW WOULD YOU LIKE A PAIR OF BUNNY-EARS LIKE MINE? WANT TO MAKE A HAT LIKE FREDDY’S? LET’S DECORATE A CUPCAKE POSTER! DO YOU LIKE TO COLOR?”

“But how does it work?” Ana asked herself, once more hunching over her tablet. “It’s just clamped in place. It’s not even plugged in like the others, it’s just…touching the…wires. Huh.” Ana sat back and stared at the wall for a while, obviously resting her eyes while her mind wandered. “You know, I’ve been saying all along that I’ve never seen anything like this before, but it suddenly occurs to me that I have.”

Before Bonnie could pick out a soundbite that allowed him to ask what she meant, Ana’s head turned. She looked at him. Not at his face, but at his knee.

“HI THERE,” Bonnie ventured. “DO YOU LIKE TO DRAW?”

Ana began to pull her camera-cable out of the wall, still looking at him. “Come on over here, my man,” she said. “I want to see if I can get a look—Oh hang on, my boob is buzzing.”

Bonnie’s ears snapped forward in surprise. Her what was what?

Ana put her screwdriver down and reached down the neck of her shirt. She came out with her phone and looked at the little screen. At once, her expression puckered into one of angry exasperation. “Oh fuck you! What do you _want_?” she snapped, then sighed and answered it, saying calmly, “Yes?”

Bonnie rotated his ears, pinpointing the tiny speaker. He heard a man’s voice, and while he didn’t think it was the same voice he’d heard the night Ana went out on her…her date…his certainty took a hit when he picked out the word ‘dinner’ from the man’s faint words. As much as he did not want that camera sliding up inside his bones—even the thought of it made the stomach he didn’t have twist on itself—he’d much rather spend the night letting Ana take him apart, joint by joint, then see her go out with another guy. _Any_ other guy, whether it was the same one or not.

There were so many other things to be upset about before that one.

‘Jeez, I really am a jealous dick,’ he thought wonderingly.

“You can be as late as you want to be,” Ana told the phone, “because I’m not going. I told you this morning—”

The man spoke, his tone sharpening, but his words no clearer. Bonnie adjusted his ears, then folded them swiftly back when Ana looked at him.

“Because why should I, that’s why not,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him until he turned away to investigate the empty art supply drawers. “I don’t need a better excuse because I don’t owe you a face-to-face. I’m busy. Goodbye.”

She thumbed the phone and tucked it back down the front of her shirt, but she did not beckon Bonnie back to her. She stared at the floor for a while, lips pressed tight, blue eyes made brilliant with suppressed anger, and then looked at the metal post in the wall. “Right,” she said, answering some internal dialogue. “No, I know. And it doesn’t matter.”

Bonnie fidgeted.

She glanced at him. One corner of her mouth crooked up. “I’m busy,” she said again, getting to her feet. “Doing what matters—” She came over, right up close, so close he could see purple reflections of his face in her eyes. “—for the people who matter—” She laced her hands behind his neck and pulled him down to meet her kiss. “—and the people I matter to,” she concluded, resting her cheek on his chest. “If it’s wrong, well, I’ve done a lot worse. If it’s stupid, I’ve been dumber. If it’s crazy…sometimes, you just gotta embrace the crazy, Bon.”

He put his arms around her, which, in retrospect, was probably the wrong response.

Her phone went off again, buzzing loudly against his casing and turning her laughter to a groan. She pulled away with an exaggerated grimace and brought it out to look at it again. “Hang on, I’ve got to deal with this asshole,” she said and headed out the door, already putting the phone to her ear with an aggressive, “What?”

He couldn’t follow, but now that the room was empty, he didn’t have to keep suggesting fun arts and crafts, either. He paced in front of the door, counting down the five minutes he was required to wait in an empty room before he was free to go look for customers elsewhere along his path.

Another date? She didn't sound like she wanted to go, but she’d sounded the same way the last time and she’d ended up going. And getting ‘worked over,’ as Foxy put it. Maybe. Something bad had happened anyway. She couldn’t seriously be thinking about going out again.

Could she?

The very second he was free to do so, Bonnie yanked the door open and limped out into the hall. He couldn’t hear anything. Was her truck still here? It had to be. He headed for the loading dock, dread and certainty growing with every step, but when he reached the kitchen doorway, something made him stop and check the silent dining room, and there she was, sitting on the edge of the table where she slept. She didn’t look up, even when he moved the crinkling sheets of plastic aside. She still had the phone in her hand, but it wasn’t talking and she wasn’t poking at it the way she sometimes did. Her eyes were downcast, unfocused.

“HI THERE!” he said, but managed to break off the rest and say instead, “ARE YOU OKAY?”

“I’m fine,” she said without emotion or expression.

He ventured a little closer, clicking through soundfiles in a desperate search for something that would allow him to at least ask her what was wrong. The best he could do was, “WHAT HAVE YOU GOT THERE?”

She looked at her phone, huffed out a breath in the general shape of a laugh, and held it up for him to see its dark screen. “That was my old boss. He wants to take me to dinner.”

Bonnie shivered. “WHY?” 

“He says he wants to talk about my future in his company. If I was a cynical bitch, I’d say that means he wants to dangle a paycheck over his dick and see if I bite, but we all know I’m a boundless fount of optimism who only sees the best in humanity, so we won’t even mention that possibility, will we?”

‘You’re not going, are you?’ he thought at her, as hard as he could. Tremors washed through him. His vision darkened. He had to be calm, he couldn’t go black, and still he thought, ‘Please tell me you’re not going.’

“I should go,” said Ana and swore, rubbing at her face. “I know what this is about. I know, I know…but I could be wrong. I’m a good worker. I won’t say I’m the best he’s got because I’m not a raging narcissist, but I’m right the fuck up there and he knows it. He was dead in the wrong to drop me at all, much less the way he did, and he knows that too. Could be he legit wants me back. Not likely, but could be. Could be he just wants a better story on record for how he let me go, since I appear to have a reputation in town for calling a lawyer when I’m getting harassed. And if that’s the case, I really should go. It’s in my own best interests to at least pretend we parted on good terms.”

“WHY?”

“Because I need a job, damn it.”

“WHY?” blurted Bonnie and inwardly cursed. That wasn’t what he meant to say. He knew why people worked, if only in the same vague way that he knew the money needed to play video games, eat pizza and buy toys for their kids had to come from somewhere. Chica had tried to explain the interdependence of societal development and economics, using words like ‘interdependence,’ so he hadn’t understood it very well. It seemed to him like a circular argument: you work to get money to buy things so you can relax a little bit before you have to go back to work. Remove the money from the equation and everyone would be much happier, wouldn’t they? He asked Chica as much, but she just laughed and called him a communist. 

In any event, he didn’t really mean to ask why Ana needed a job, he wanted to ask why she needed to get one from this guy. He hated to see her like this, frustrated and defeated, but all he could do was honk out one of those stupid yee-haw laughs and all he could say was, “WHY?”

She answered anyway, with a shrug and a scowl first, followed eventually by a sigh. “I’d love to tell you it’s all protective coloration. Lord knows, that’s how it started. I mean, the first time I turned up on Shelly’s mat, I was hurting and he knew it, but the second time, hell, I still had fifty grand in that bank account. I took his belt-hitching little-missy handout because I wanted to have some kind of plausible income, so no one gets the crazy idea I’m living off drug money after kicking it a couple weeks with Mason ‘Meth Is Love’ Kellar. That was how it started,” she amplified dourly. “But here’s the thing, Bon—”

“I’M ALL EARS,” he blurted, waggling them, and let out another honking goddamn laugh.

“The thing is, fifty thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money when you don’t have any, but it bleeds away fast when you’re rebuilding a house, let alone two of them. I had to drop a significant chunk of cash on my aunt’s house to get past the inspection and the costs here just keep racking up. I don’t have the luxury of shopping around for a good price, I’ve got a deadline. I knew that and I signed on anyway, because I had this day-job, you see, and I knew I could spend my savings on this place and deal with my aunt’s house one paycheck at a time. Well, if I don’t have that paycheck, I run out of money in one hell of a hurry. In fact…I may not have enough left to finish this job as it is, not the way I want to. I promised I’d leave them in a good place, Bonnie. I promised. I promised Freddy, too,” she added after a moment. “And I never left a job half-done in my damn life, so walking away from this one for something as stupid as not having enough money really stings. So what are my options? Either I ask Rider for more work, and that’s for goddamn sure not happening after the last time, or I find another job—” 

She interrupted herself with a laugh to illustrate the likelihood and Bonnie triggered hard and had to laugh along.

“—or I go crawling back to Shelly anyway and beg for my job back so he can go on staring at my tits while questioning my morals. So that’s where I’m at, my man, and that’s what sucks, because I actually have to think about it.”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

“Tonight?” She shrugged. “Go to Gallifrey’s and let Shelly tell me all the reasons he was right to fire me, followed by all the reasons I should be, like, _extra_ -grateful he’s still willing to give a decent reference to my future employer, should I find one, although he might be persuaded to take me back, depending on how extra-grateful I’m inclined to be, at which point I either feed him a delicious fried chicken dinner plate-first and walk out or I take the candy and climb in the van.”

It was hard to track down what he wanted to say, but he did eventually find and isolate it: “YOU SHOULD NEVER TAKE CANDY FROM STRANGERS.”

“I may not have a choice, Bonnie. If I tell Shelly to fuck off, he’ll tell me I’ll never work in his town again and he’ll be right.” 

“ARE YOU SURE?”

Ana pulled her duffel bag over, opened a side pocket and tossed a short fan of postcards across the table. Bonnie picked them up, looking at the generically pretty pictures on one side and reading the notes on the other. Deuteronomy 23:2. 3 Nephi 5:6. Amos 2:7. Alma 45:16. 1 Nephi 14:12. And one that said plainly, _Kill yourself you bitch bastard whore._

“Haven’t gotten around to framing those yet,” she said, taking them back and tucking them into her duffel bag again. “But you get a pretty good idea of how many people will be lining up to hire me after Shelly drop-kicks me out of Gallifrey’s. But I’m stupid and stubborn and I’ve still got a few thousand bucks, so I’ll hang in there for a month or maybe two until I’m hungry enough to give Rider a call and he’ll tell me to come home…and I guess I will,” she concluded, staring at the empty stage. “At least until the next opportunity to fuck up my life comes along. You know I can’t resist those. Bottom line is, I’m not exactly desperate yet, but I will be before too long, and when I reach that point…”

He was horribly afraid he knew how that unfinished sentence had ended in her head. “DON’T GO,” he said. “THE FUN’S JUST STARTING.”

She sighed, slumping forward over her knees and would not look at him. “I have to stop working until my financial situation stabilizes. That’s all there is to it. I can get the roof on, but after that…I cannot afford to spend one more penny on this place until I have a paycheck.”

“OKAY,” he said, praying that meant just what it sounded like and nothing more.

But she looked at him and he knew, even before she said it: “I have to stop coming here.”

“NO.”

“Bonnie—”

“STAY AND PLAY. THE FUN’S JUST STARTING!”

“I can’t. I can’t fix up the house and this place both, not without an income. And I can’t ignore my aunt’s house just to…to play around at Freddy’s! I have to stop. I have to go back. I have to deal with that shit!”

“PLEASE! I’M YOUR B-B-BEST BUDDY! LET’S ROCK!”

She didn’t answer.

‘I can’t lose you now,’ he thought, shouting it inside his mind where he never stuttered. A cloud moved over the sun, casting an appropriate shadow over the dining room—or did it? Bonnie looked up, but the silver sun was still shining bright in a grey sky. Going black. Not now, not right here in front of her! Fighting tremors he knew were only going to get worse, Bonnie thought, ‘I love you. I love you,’ and said, “IT’S GREAT TO SEE YOU AGAIN, LITTLE FRIEND. I MISSED YOU.”

“Bonnie, the only reason I came back to this town at all is because…because I thought I could do something for them. For _them_. Please, try to understand, they were supposed to be my family. I was so mad at the debt guy for caring about who was going to pay for the house more than the fact that the people who used to live in it are gone and no one is looking for them. Well, hell, _I’m_ not looking!” she said with another of those angry laughs. “Don’t you see? That’s why I have to choose the house, because I _don’t_ want to. Because they were my family and I’ve fallen so fucking far from what that means that I actually have to think about it when I have to choose between them…” She turned away from him, her mouth twisting as if she’d tasted something sour. “…and you.” 

He shuffled a little closer, searching his soundfiles, but allowed himself to become too distracted so that his scanners registered her slumped posture and bowed head, triggering a response, and even though he tried to stop it, it all come blatting out: “ _WHEN YOU’RE MAD OR SAD OR FEELING BAD AND DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO, JUST TURN THAT FROWN UPSIDE-DOWN AND YOU WON’T FEEL SO BLUE!_ ”

God.

She did look at him, but her eyes were the eyes of a woman who knew she was hearing a pre-recorded song spitting out of a giant toy that couldn’t do anything about the troubles of the world except hug them away. When she went back to staring at the floor without speaking, it was almost a relief.

“I’M SORRY,” said Bonnie.

“You’re fine,” she said, as automatically as he’d puked out the Cheer-Up Rhyme.

“I’M SORRY,” he said again, needing her to know he meant it.

She didn’t bother to answer that time at all.

Bonnie watched her, feeling subroutines like beetles squirming through his brain, twitching uncontrollably as he fought to crush them all before they could make a bad situation worse. One of them got through anyway—“DO YOU WANT TO SING A SONG?”—but she just shook her head and thankfully didn’t look at him first.

His second effort was slightly more successful, although he hated to give her ideas when he knew she was already thinking about it: “HEADING HOME SO SOON?”

“Home, huh?” She glanced at him, shook her head, and resumed staring at the floor. “I don’t even think of it like going home. It’s just a house.” She went quiet, but not still. Her hands moved along the edge of the table, constantly gripping and twisting. Her feet tapped. Her gaze roamed, restless and unfocused. In a low, unsteady voice, she said, “I haven’t thought of a house as a home since I was a kid. Even then, the home I wanted, I couldn’t have. The home I had, I didn’t want. You know?” Her eyes stabbed at him, twisted, moved on. “Of course you don’t know. You’ve always been here.”

Bonnie moved closer and put his hand over hers. 

She pulled free, but then picked his hand up and put it on her knee, fidgeting now with his fingers and tracing the cracks in his casing. “Sorry. It’s so stupid. I’ll stop talking about it.”

He shook his head hard. “THAT’S SO INTERESTING. TELL ME MORE!”

“You don’t mean that.”

He touched her cheek with the hand she wasn’t playing with and held it there until she met his eyes. “PLEASE.”

She shook her head, but after a while, she faked a laugh and said, “It is stupid, though. It’s stupid to think that I’ve probably lived in a hundred different places, but I can still feel like I’ve been homeless my whole life. Mom took me away and I’ve just been on some endless fucking drug-fueled day-labor road-trip ever since. Now I’m back. I can’t even say I came home. I just came back.”

Bonnie triggered. He yanked his arm out of her grip so he couldn’t accidently hurt her if his hand clenched, hyucking out his stupid stage laugh and cheering, “IT’S GREAT TO SEE YOU AGAIN, LITTLE FRIEND!” 

“It’s not my home,” she said angrily, ignoring him. “I don’t live there. I don’t even really think of it as a house that I own. It’s just another job. Do you get that? They were supposed to be my family. I was supposed to love them. Now they’re a job!” The last word cracked, not with tears but as if she’d run out of air to say it. She breathed for a while, slow but shallow, staring at the floor in the middle of the room, and finally said, “And I don’t want it,” in an angry, weary whisper.

Bonnie was aware of nothing he could say that wasn’t some variation of, ‘AWWW, THAT’S TOO BAD!’ and he’d be damned if he’d say that. Silence was bad, though, and with every extra second, it only got worse, so he kept searching, clicking through soundfiles with growing desperation as his Ana sat and stared at the world from a thousand yards away.

“I. KNOW. HOW. YOU. FEEL.”

Bonnie, startled, swung toward the sound of Freddy’s unexpected voice and saw him standing on the other side of the plastic separating the dining room from the East Hall. For how long? Long enough, clearly.

Ana did not start. She merely clapped a hand over her eyes and gave her head a tight, angry shake. “I know you’re only saying that because you have to, but please, just stop. You don’t have the first fucking clue what I’m feeling.”

“YES,” said Freddy, pushing through the plastic. His eyes met Bonnie’s just for a second before he looked away, like Ana, into the middle of the empty room. “I. DO.”

“Oh yeah?” Ana dropped her hands and turned to give him a challenging stare. “If you know so much, then what do I do? This is your moment, Freddy. You can tell me to go home and I might actually do it. So let’s hear it, big bear, loud and proud. What do I do?”

Freddy studied her, not twitching, not clicking, thoughtful. When he moved again, it was with a beckoning hand and a calm, “FOLLOW ME.”

Frowning, Ana looked at Bonnie, but he was just as confused as she was and he must have showed it. After a moment, she pushed herself off the table and went after him, through the hanging sheets of plastic and down the East Hall.

He had not been invited and it was probably wrong to intrude on their private moment, but struggling with moral implications was really more of a Chica-thing. Bonnie gave them a head-start and then limped after them, switching off his eyes and sticking to the shadows as much as he could now that Ana had taken the roof off and sunlight was everywhere. He had to settle for lurking in the doorway of the craft room and rotated his ears so the microphones at their bases could pick up their voices clearly.

Freddy led Ana all the way to the crossroads where the stupid plastic pig stood beneath the signpost. That was what Ana looked at, but Freddy had another reason for bringing her there. Getting her attention with a tap on her shoulder, he pointed at the wall where the remains of an old Grand Opening poster still hung. A group shot with all of them: Freddy in the front row center, of course, microphone in hand and arm out in welcome, Bonnie and Chica on one side, Foxy and Mangle on the other, and even the others—Brewster, Swampy, Tux, Rumble and Tumble, and Peggy—behind them, their empty animatronic bodies posed to imitate life. 

“THIS. IS. MY. FAMILY,” Freddy was saying. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT WORD MEANS, KIDS?”

“Well, Disney would tell us it means no one gets left behind, but we both know that isn’t true, don’t we?”

“IT. MEANS. WE. GET. TO. CHOOSE,” said Freddy.

Ana did not appear to have a smart comeback to that.

“WE. DO. NOT. CHOOSE. OUR. FAMILY. LIKE. WE. CHOOSE. FRIENDS,” Freddy said, his gaze shifting from face to face on the poster. “THEY. ARE. GIVEN. TO. US. WE. ARE. GIVEN. TO. THEM. WE. DON’T. HAVE. A. CHOICE. WHO. WE. GET. BUT. WE. GET. TO. CHOOSE. TO. LOVE. THEM.”

“Or not to love them,” Ana said, almost too quietly for Bonnie’s mics to pick up.

“OR. NOT,” Freddy agreed. “LOVE. ISN’T. ALMOST.” He paused, clicking. “ALWAYS,” he amended. “EASY.”

“It isn’t always enough, either.”

“NO. BUT. WHEN. YOU. HAVE. IT. IT. MAKES. UP. FOR. A. LOT. OF. WHAT. YOU. DON’T.”

Silence. The sound of gears turning inside his own body was enormous.

“FAMILY. COMES. FIRST. I. WON’T. TELL. YOU. TO. GO. HOME,” said Freddy. He paused, then added in a grumbling undertone, “YOU. DON’T. LISTEN. TO. ME. ANY. WAY.”

Ana laughed. It wasn’t loud, but it was real, as opposed to the hurt, upset huffing she’d been doing. 

“AND. I. WON’T. TELL. YOU. MONEY. DOESN’T. MATTER. THERE’S. A GIFT SHOP. FULL. OF. GARBAGE. WITH. MY. FACE. ON. IT. THAT. SAYS. OTHER. WISE. AND. WE. ALL. HAVE. JOBS. WE. DON’T. WANT. TO. DO.”

“Is this where you tell me that part of being a grown-up is putting needs before wants?”

“NO. THIS. IS. WHERE. I. TELL. YOU. THAT. FAMILY. COMES. FIRST. BUT. HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS. AND. YOU. HAVE. AT. LEAST. ONE. HEART. HERE.”

Bonnie risked a peek out the door and saw Freddy lay his paw on Ana’s shoulder. It was a brief touch, but Freddy didn’t give even the small ones out lightly. 

“YOU. CAN. ALWAYS. COME. BACK. AN-N-A. EVEN. IF. IT’S. JUST. FOR. AN. HOUR. EVEN. IF. IT’S. JUST. TO. SAY. HELLO. YOU. DON’T. NEED. A. REASON. OR. A. WOOF. TO. FIX. YOU. JUST. NEED. TO. KNOCK.”

“God, we’re not going to hug, are we?”

Freddy took his hand off her. “NO.” 

But Bonnie could sense they weren’t going to keep talking much longer either. He ducked out of the craft room while he still could, limping rapidly, but quietly, ahead of them back to the dining room to assume a casual pose next to Ana’s table. 

“Hypothetically,” said Ana, still well back in the hall, “if I asked for your advice about Shelly, what would you tell me?”

“IF. YOU. ASKED. ME.” Freddy, much closer, grunted out a short laugh. “I’D. ASK. WHO. ARE. YOU. AND. WHAT. HAVE. YOU. DONE. WITH. AN-N-A.”

“Seriously, what should I do?”

“THINK. ABOUT. IT.”

“Come on, if you’ve got something, just tell me. So not in the mood for riddles.”

“NO. THAT’S. MY. ANSWER. THINK. ABOUT. IT. AND. WHAT. EVER. YOU. CHOOSE. TO. DO. YOU’LL. DO. IT. BECAUSE. YOU. MADE. A. CHOICE. AND. NOT. BECAUSE. YOU. FELT. LIKE. YOU. HAD. NONE.”

“Wow.”

Freddy grunted.

“No, really. Wow. You are three for three tonight, big bear.”

“THANK YOU. AND. STOP. CALLING. ME. THAT.”

“Freddy, wait up a sec.”

Freddy’s footsteps were now close enough for Bonnie to hear them, but they stopped. “WHAT IS IT?”

“About this morning…”

“THAT’S OKAY.”

“No, it’s really not. I…I bit your head off and I shouldn’t have done that.”

As someone who actually had bitten a few heads off over the years, Freddy’s acknowledging grunt was more amused than forgiving, but Bonnie was still encouraged. A little apology went a long way with Freddy and the ones he didn’t have to fish for himself went even further.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you. I realize you were trying to help and I appreciate the thought. I do. But listen, it’s not your job to decide how much sleep I get or when I eat or what I smoke. If I ask your opinion, hey, feel free to let me have it, both barrels, but even that doesn’t mean you get to tell me how to live my life. That shit’s got to stop. All right?”

Freddy grunted again, thoughtfully this time. After a moment, he said, “AN-N-A. IF. YOU. DON’T. WANT. ME. TO. TELL. YOU. TO. GET. MORE. SLEEP. THEN. GET. MORE. SLEEP.”

“Freddy,” Ana sighed. “Okay, let’s start over. I realize—”

“IF. YOU. DON’T. WANT. ME. TO. TELL. YOU. TO. EAT. THEN. EAT. MORE,” Freddy continued calmly. “AND. IF. YOU. DON’T. WANT. ME. TO. TAKE. CARE. OF. YOU. THEN. TAKE. BETTER. CARE. OF. YOURSELF. THIS. IS. MY. HOUSE.”

“I know.”

“AND. WHEN. YOU. ARE. HERE—”

“I know, I know! Be a good guest.”

“YOU’RE. NOT. A. GUEST,” said Freddy. “YOU’RE. FAMILY.”

Silence.

“BUT. I. AM. THE. HEAD. OF. THIS. FAMILY. SO. WHEN. YOU. ARE. HERE. YOU. REMEMBER. RULE NUMBER TWENTY-NINE. I’M FREDDY FAZBEAR. I’M THE LEADER OF THE BAND. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

Still no reply from Ana.

Freddy’s footsteps resumed. He came into the dining room, giving Bonnie a pointed glance that strongly suggested his retreat had not been as quiet as he’d hoped (sometimes he forgot that, even if his ears were the longest, the microphones inside them were the same model for all of them).

Busted. The best thing to do now was keep quiet and feign ignorance and hope Freddy had better things to do than give Bonnie a lecture on eavesdropping they both knew he wouldn’t take to heart. But then Ana came in, distracted and frowning until she glanced at him, when her lips twitched and she said, “What the hell are you grinning about?”

Bonnie put a hand over his muzzle, hiding the smile hardly anyone else would have even been able to see. “NOTHING.”

“Were you eavesdropping on us?”

“NO.”

Freddy grunted reproachfully. “GOOD BOYS AND GIRLS DON’T LIE.”

“Yeah, but my man’s kind of a bad bunny.” Ana came over, resting one hand briefly on Bonnie’s chest while she kissed his cheek, and then reached past him for her pack.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Bonnie asked, his hands twitching as he passed it to her.

From back in the East Hall, no doubt on her way to the stage, Chica was close enough to get triggered, chirping, “I’M PICKING APPLES SO I CAN TRY OUT A NEW RECIPE!”

So naturally, Bonnie had to jerk himself around and continue: “APPLE PIZZA?”

“EW! NO, SILLY. IT’S AN APPLE BAVARIAN TORTE!”

“Yum,” Ana remarked, rummaging through her things. “I haven’t made one of those in a while.”

“SOUNDS COMPLICATED,” Bonnie said dubiously, trying in vain to at least move his eyes so he could see if Ana was packing up or just getting something.

“OH, I’M SURE IT’LL BE A PIECE OF CAKE!”

“That’s a hell of a long lead-up for a really lame joke,” said Ana, raising her voice to add, “Punning is the very lowest form of humor, Chica.”

“EVERYONE’S A CRITIC,” Freddy rumbled, giving Bonnie a pat on the shoulder as he walked away. “THE SHOW’S ABOUT TO START, KIDS. BONNIE. YOU. HAVE. ONE. MINUTE.”

He had five minutes actually, which was plenty of time to work through the crowd of kids his program had been designed around, hugging and chatting and letting little hands feel at the strings of his guitar, but nowhere near long enough to spend with Ana when he didn’t know where she’d be at the end of the hour. “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” he asked, shivering, but still trying to smile.

Ana pushed things around in her pack some more, then closed it up and shoved it aside. “Nowhere,” she decided. “Hell, I know what he’s going to say and the bottom line is, that job is not so great that I’d fuck him to keep it and I’m not so great that he’d take me back for any other reason after the way we split.”

“SO. YOU’RE. NOT. GOING,” Freddy prompted, holding Chica’s arm as he walked up the stage steps, one by one.

“I don’t need to go,” said Ana, stressing the word ‘need’ with a grimace. “But on the other hand, it’d be nice to have a body to bury before I dig myself into another deep hole, you know?”

“WHAT. DOES. THAT. MEAN.”

Chica twitched and chirped, “THAT IS A WORD WITH A LOT OF DIFFERENT MEANINGS AND CAN BE USED IN A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT WAYS. AS A PRONOUN TO INDICATE A SPECIFIC PERSON OR THING, AS A DEFINING CLAUSE, AS AN ADJECTIVE OR AN ADVERB WHEN IN REFERENCE TO ANOTHER PERSON, THING OR IDEA—”

“THAT’S ENOUGH,” said Freddy, patting her. “THANK YOU, CHICA.”

“VOCABULARY POWER!”

“AN-N-A.”

Ana reached out absently to take Bonnie’s hand. She held it up between them, matching her five fingers to his four ones, tracing each chip and crack with her eyes as if the secrets to the universe were carved into his casing.

Her hand was warm.

“You want me to think about it?” she asked, frowning as she watched her fingers twine slowly with his. “Here’s what I think. I think I don’t want to sit at not one more table listening to one more leering asshole ask my tits how much I want to keep my job. Been there, Bon. So many times. I promised myself I’d never do it again. It’s worth it to me not to have a job if it means not starring in that scene one more time. I’d walk away from this job, that house, and this whole town in a heartbeat…if it weren’t for you.”

“NO,” said Bonnie, shaking his head, thinking, ‘Not for me. Don’t you do it and say it’s for me.’

“But I’m not walking away from you,” she said, looking up into his eyes. He was struck all over, as he was every time, by how blue they were. And as anger slowly began to eclipse the unhappiness that clouded them, they only got brighter and bluer. “Not that easy. Not over a lot of maybes and might haves. He’s going to have to say it to my fucking face. And if he thinks I’m going to run myself out of town just because he calls me a whore for not jumping on his dick, he’s got a shock coming. I’ve been called worse by better men than him and if they want me out of this town, they are going to have to drag me out by my fucking ankles!”

Mesmerized by her eyes, Bonnie could only nod.

“THAT’S THE SPIRIT,” said Freddy. “SO. YOU’RE. GOING.”

“Yeah,” said Ana without enthusiasm. “I guess I am.”

“ALL RIGHT. DRIVE SAFELY. AND. COME BACK SOON. BONNIE. YOUR. MINUTE. IS. UP.”

Bonnie looked at Ana, unable to think of anything except the last time she’d gone out to dinner after a phone call with a man. She’d been gone all night then and come back so…well, she still wasn’t all the way back. ‘Please don’t go,’ he thought, but all he could say was, “COME BACK SOON.”

Her smile was a mechanical thing. Her eyes were clouded again, far away and troubled. She shouldered her pack and left.

Bonnie climbed onstage, picked up his guitar, and took his place as he waited for the next set to start.

“SHE’LL. BE. ALL. RIGHT,” said Freddy.

‘You don’t know that,’ thought Bonnie.

Freddy grunted, raising his microphone and giving the audience a welcoming wave as the six o’clock set started, but instead of his usual greeting, he said, “AN-N-A. RUNS. FROM. A. LOT. OF. PROBLEMS.”

Just what he needed right now, a reading of Freddy’s updated list of Ana’s faults. Bonnie’s ears flattened briefly—that was involuntary—but all the rest of him was happily hyucking away as he introduced himself for the seventh time today to a roomful of ghosts. 

“BUT. NOT. THIS. ONE,” Freddy mused. “THIS. TIME. SHE. WANTS. TO. STAY. AND. FIGHT. EVEN. IF. THIS. IS. A. MISTAKE. SHE’S. MAKING. IT. BECAUSE. SHE. THINKS. YOU. ARE. WORTH. MAKING. A MISTAKE. FOR.” Freddy glanced at him, smiling just a little. “SHE. LOVES. YOU.”

‘Don’t be stupid,’ thought Bonnie as the heart he didn’t have beat faster. ‘I’m an animatronic rabbit. She doesn’t even think I’m alive.’

“EVERY. THING. ABOUT. HER. FEELS. DANGEROUS. AND. WRONG,” Freddy said and sighed. “BUT. I. LIKE. HER. AND. IF. SHE’S. WILLING. TO. FIGHT. FOR. YOU. I’M. WILLING. TO. FIGHT. FOR. HER. SO. IF. SHE. COMES. BACK. AND. TELLS. YOU. THAT. MAN. REALLY. TRIED. TO. MAKE. HER. SLEEP. WITH. HIM. TO. KEEP. HER. JOB. I. WANT. TO. KNOW. ABOUT. IT.”

‘And do what?’ thought Bonnie, ears twitching.

Freddy answered as if he’d heard. “YOU. GIVE. ME. A. NAME. I’LL. FIND. OUT. WHERE. HE. LIVES. AND. FOXY. WILL. TAKE. A. LITTLE. WALK.”

Bonnie managed to look at him, but he sure looked serious.

Freddy took a bow. The sun shone down through the crawlway, slanting shadows across his face, so that he seemed to be scowling and smiling at the same time, and maybe he was. “I. GET. THE. FEELING. AN-N-A. DOESN’T. KNOW. MUCH. ABOUT. FAMILIES. BUT. LESSON. NUMBER. ONE. IS. NO. ONE. F-F-FUCKS. WITH. MINE.”


	14. Chapter 14

# CHAPTER FOURTEEN

So Ana went to meet Shelly at Gallifrey’s. She did not shower first. She didn’t brush the work-dust out of her hair. She didn’t change her shirt. She didn’t have a clean one to change into anyway, but she wouldn’t have, even if she had. She did wear make-up, but only what was necessary to cover her bruises so she wouldn’t be forced to explain them. Short of wearing a sign around her neck, she wanted to make it very clear this was not a date.

Two could play at that game, apparently. He was forty-five minutes late, long enough that Ana had begun to wonder if she’d been stood up on her not-a-date, although when he finally walked in, it was obvious he had gone home at some point to shower, change, and run a comb through his eyebrows.

Shelly made the rounds, nodding to those diners he knew and stopping at the counter to chat with Lucy as she rang another customer up before finally wandering back to the booth where Ana waited. “Looks like you’ve been busy,” was his sole acknowledgement of her appearance. 

“Still am. You?” she asked, in the hopes that once the pleasantries were out of the way, he’d get to the point.

“Can’t say busy, but it sure feels like I’m running to catch up while the rest of world stands still. This mall job has been a bitch and a pack of pups since it fell in my lap,” he said, sliding into the seat opposite her. “Had to bring a demolition expert down special. He rescheduled twice, never mind how that affected all the special equipment I had to rent, and then there was an issue with the permits and the city on my ass wanting me to prioritize their penny-ante odd-jobs over everything else I got going on. I only just got the last of it scraped up the other day, two weeks behind schedule.”

He paused there and seemed to be waiting, so Ana said, “That sucks.”

“Slater’s a shiftless screw-up,” he grumbled. “Wyborn’s a lazy dog and between the two of them, they are representing Shelton Contractors as a good place for bad workers to just skate on by. In the end, a man’s got nothing but his name and his reputation. I have invested more than thirty years in that company and I will not have it be remembered as a clubhouse for clowns.”

Boy, he better not be lumping her in the clown car with them as his reason for firing her. She’d rather have her morals called into question than her professionalism.

“Times have changed and not for the better,” he announced, signaling Lucy now that she was finished at the cashier’s station. “Used to be, folks had personal accountability. Now it’s all me-me-me. My generation raised a generation of loudmouth liberals, who raised a generation of materialistic twits, who raised a bunch of self-entitled brats, and where it’ll go from there, who knows? Everyone’s got their hand out, looking for a paycheck they don’t have to earn. Meatloaf sandwich,” he finished as Lucy approached the booth with a glass of ice water and napkin-wrapped silverware, but no menu. “And what’ll you have?”

“Betty Burger and fries. Separate checks,” Ana added pointedly.

“One check,” Shelly corrected. “This here’s a work-related expense. Never pass up a tax deduction, little miss. There’s some advice from a successful business owner. Where was I?”

“I believe you were complaining about the youth of today always expecting a free meal.”

“That’s right. Look at Slater, now. Twenty-one years old, still living at home. Rent-free. His daddy gave him a car when he was sixteen. Just gave it to him! And when he crashed it, he gave him another one! Knocked up a girl in high school, but didn’t want to marry her. His momma was the emergency dispatcher going on twenty years, but he made her take early retirement to take care of _his_ boy so he wouldn’t have to pay for day care. And his daddy wants to moan at me, wondering where the boy gets the notion that the world owes him a living! Tell you what, the day my boys turned eighteen, the very day, I gave each of them exactly two things: a birthday cake and a renter’s agreement. Last of them moved out…Lord, it’s been twenty years ago now.”

So, what was the correct response here? ‘That’s nice’ or ‘Too bad’?

“How many you got?” Ana asked, reasoning that at least indicated she was listening, even if she could not care less about the answer.

“Three. They’re all out of town now, of course. Don’t see ‘em more’n once a year, if that.” Out came the wallet. He dug a creased photograph out of one of the slots and passed it over. A much younger Shelly posed with a brunette and three gap-toothed boys ranging from infant to just-starting-school age. “Closest one’s in Minnesota, you believe that? Daniel’s even further out in New York, and the baby’s in Tokyo, of all places. That’s what the internet and the television’s done to the world, making kids think everything’s easier over the horizon.” He took the photo back and tucked it away again, casually adding, “Tell you the truth, I kind of like having the house to myself. Guess I’m just an old bachelor at heart.”

Damn it. Was she supposed to ask what happened to the wife and risk sounding like she was hinting for an availability status? Or not ask and risk sounding like a bitch who didn’t care about what he was saying? They needed to teach this shit in school.

‘Maybe they did. How would you know? You dropped out of school,’ Ana reminded herself and said, “I like living alone, too.”

“Uncomplicates things, doesn’t it? No dividing up the closet, no arguing over the TV remote, nothing cluttering up the bathroom. Still. It comes with its own problems too. More for you than me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, a woman living alone. And you up on that mountain, no one around for miles. Must be rough on you.”

“Not really.”

“Seemed like every time the wind blew, Jill was pushing me out of bed to check the place for prowlers. Good woman, but nervous,” he added. “It was her heart took her in the end.” 

‘Jesus Christ, man,’ Ana thought, hiding her annoyance in her coffee cup. ‘You are like the world’s longest pencil. You never get to the fucking point.’

“She was young for it, but I can’t say it was a surprise,” Shelly went on. “Couldn’t cook a boiled egg, God love her. Kept bringing home the fast food. At least it was sudden.” 

Right on cue, here came Lucy with their dinners.

“Speaking of family,” said Shelly, taking a huge bite of meatloaf on a buttered bun with bacon and three slices of cheese. “You and Jimmy Morehead seem like you’re getting awful friendly.”

“Excuse me?” Ana said, honestly taken aback.

“Saw you talking to him a few weeks ago, all through your lunch break.” He had another bite of sandwich. “None of my business, but I think you should know he’s married.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve met her. So?” 

He chewed, placid as a cow, watching her. 

“Are you seriously accusing me of sniffing around after another woman’s man based on, what? Me and Morehead exchanging words one time in front of a dozen other guys?” Ana asked, annoyed. 

“I’m not accusing you of anything, but I’m sure not going to sit here and say I haven’t heard some rumors. My business is my reputation, little miss, which means your reputation is my business.”

“Only if I work for you,” Ana shot back. “Oh for…fine. I heard him talking to Paulie about getting someone to come out and help his wife butcher an animal they got. I used to work in a slaughterhouse, so I volunteered. I went over a couple weeks back, took care of it, she paid me a couple bucks, end of fucking association. Happy?”

Shelly contemplated this around another bite of sandwich. “Makes a fella wonder why he can’t do it himself.”

“Because he’s a giant pussy about blood. You haven’t noticed? Jesus, Paulie nicked himself unloading a skillsaw and I thought Morehead was going to faint.”

“I haven’t noticed. He’s only been working for me a few weeks longer than you. Lost his job when Green Thumbs went out of business. Local landscaper,” he explained, just like she’d asked. “Felt it was only right to hire him on, since most of Wyatt’s old trade naturally came my way.”

“Contracting and landscaping now?”

“Small town like this doesn’t have much in the way of big building jobs. I’m happy to take what I can get. Landscaping, storm clean-up…hell, we’ve been called out to scrape up roadkill a time or two. I started this company and I have not kept it growing all these years by being picky about the work that washes my way. Tearing down the old mall’s been the biggest job all year and putting up the dealership shouldn’t take more than a few months. It’s mostly parking lot.”

“Dealership?” echoed Ana, surprised. “I thought you were building a new mall?”

“Now why would anyone put a new mall there if the old one didn’t get enough business to keep it afloat?” he asked, while Ana heard Mike Schmidt’s voice in her mind saying that was how Mammon died…twenty businesses shut their doors when the mall closes, but only one re-opens. “Nope. Eustace Green is moving his business on up. Bigger lot, more room for stock. And closer to your Black-Eyed Susan, eh, Lucy?” he called good-naturedly.

“Old goats, the pair of you,” she replied with affectionate disdain. “Besides, that ship has sailed.”

“I heard. Getting married and moving off to Oregon.”

“With that fella she met online.” Her disdain now was considerably less affectionate. “Leaving me in the lurch for a boy named Angel. Angel! At least I think it’s a boy. Grows his hair out so long I can hardly tell. And that’s the last of them,” she sighed. “The nest is empty, or will be just as soon as His Holiness sneaks off with the last chick. I’ll have to hire on more help and that has not been working out for us,” she added archly.

“Your Chrissie’s girls are of age, aren’t they? Put ‘em to work!”

“Oh, Sierra’s going off to college in the fall. Not even BYU, but Cal Tech,” Lucy said, pulling an odd sort of face for a proud grandmother to make on the subject of her grandchild’s scholastic success. 

“What’s she want to do that for?”

“She thinks she’s going to be a rocket scientist or something. I don’t know where she gets those ideas. I told her. ‘Sierra,’ I said, ‘no man is going to want a lady who builds rockets. They’ll think she’s a lesbian.’ And do you know what she said to me?”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘What’s wrong with that?’ What’s _wrong_ with that! Anyway, her mind’s made up,” Lucy sighed. “Mackenzie’s going off on her mission soon. And Janey’s just going off. Got herself an apartment in St. George with one of her little friends from school.”

“How’s she paying for it?”

“Waitressing,” said Lucy with an arch stare. “At the Denny’s. The _Denny’s_ , mind you. And don’t get me started on Mary! She lost all control over that family when she let her husband move her away and now the boys are all smoking and staying out all night doing who knows what and not one of them are working! I told her, you send those boys back to me for the summer and I will straighten them out, but that man she married won’t have it. And this Angel is going to turn out just the same, you mark my words. He’ll set my Susie down in a strange place with all those strange people and the next thing you know, she’ll be living in a tree and naming her babies Karma and Persimmon.”

Shelly chuckled indulgently.

“Timothy tells me we can’t blame them for leaving,” Lucy said with a reproachful glance toward the kitchen. “Got to go where the money is, he says. I just can’t help thinking it’s all the wrong ones moving away.” Lucy’s eye fell on Ana and lingered, the words ‘and all the wrong ones coming back’ practically in a thought-bubble over her head, and then she walked away.

Something about that conversation struck Ana as off.

“Nope, not a lot of work in town these days,” Shelly went on, picking through his fries and beginning to lay some out in a neat row, side by side, on the tabletop. “Not a lot of businesses still staying afloat. I’ve been very fortunate…up until now.”

He paused there, giving her a chance to ask the obvious question. Ana waited with him, still turning the conversation over in her mind. Just typical small-town small-talk, but something was definitely wrong. Not so much a sour note…but one left out.

At last, Shelly cleared his throat. “As I say, I’ve been under some stress lately. Maybe I let it get to me, said some things I shouldn’t have said. Maybe you did too.”

“Maybe,” said Ana, thinking, ‘Maybe not.’ And anyway, what was off about the Gallifrey girls? All girls, she remembered that. Never a son to carry on the glory of the Gallifrey name. Just the girls, all playing together in their neat yard or walking together to school, ribbons in their hair and nice clean clothes, laughing at Ana as she biked by in David’s hand-me-downs…

“Thing is, I need you to understand where I’m coming from. When you talk about work, why, you’re talking about work. Nothing wrong with that,” he added. “You’re a good worker, better than I thought you’d be by a damn sight. But when I talk about work, I’m talking about men feeding families. And if I step out of line at all where you and your private life are concerned, it’s for the same reason. My men got families and I got to look out for them.”

“Family comes first,” said Ana.

“You understand. Good.”

“I’m not sure yet how you think it applies to me, but yeah, I understand.”

“Well, let me tell you how it applies, little miss.” Shelly leaned back in the booth, his eyes curiously cold. “So I get the call last week confirming that I lost the library to that jackass, Villart, although I understand Mrs. Pickett was holding out for me and I guess I got you and those shelves at the daycare to thank for that. In any case, the old mall demolition and the new dealership has been the biggest job on my books in some time and, apart from some city work—storm clean-up, parks maintenance, holidays and the like—it’s the last big job I got until next summer and the new downtown strip. That one will take every hand I got and keep my books in the black at least a year, but in the meantime, I’m in a bind.”

‘Finally,’ thought Ana, mentally settling in now that it looked like the small talk was over and the real talk was starting. 

“Now, I always had enough work to pass out to my boys,” he said, neatening that row of fries, “but times have changed and work is getting thin. I got twelve men—excuse me, twelve bodies on my crew. Most of them got families and all of them are looking to me to put food on their tables. You understand my predicament?”

There were twelve french fries on the table.

“Old Paulie’s going to retire at the end of summer,” he said, picking up the longest fry and frowning at it. “Going to move out to Arkansas so they can be near the kids. I say move the kids here, but he says no. And that’s how it goes, I guess. Used to be, if kids needed help, they moved home and let their babies grow up on the same land they were born and their daddy was born. Nowadays, the kids need help and it’s the daddy’s job to uproot and go off with ‘em. People wonder why the world’s going to hell.” 

He ate the fry.

Ana waited, thinking of the Gallifrey girls. Susie…Black-Eyed Susan, yes, even though Ana had the vague notion that her eyes had been, like Lucy’s own, a warm brown. Chrissie, which was short either for Christina or Chrysanthemum depending on whether you asked her mother or her father. And Mary, who, despite being quite-contrary and not at all blonde, had been nicknamed Marigold. A garden of Gallifreys…with one missing flower. Who? Rose? Daisy? Lily? None of them struck a chord, but Ana was sure there’d been another girl and unlike her sister’s nicknames, this one had been straight-up given the name of a flower.

“Once Paulie’s gone, Hageman becomes my only licensed electrician,” Shelly continued, picking up another fry and moving it to the other side of his plate, protected. “Burtwell and Collins both been with me more’n ten years.” Two more fries moved over. “Taylor’s an ass, but his wife and my Jill were cousins, so…” Grimacing, he moved a fry, then folded his hands and studied the battle-lines. “I guess I got room on the payline for two more men. Bodies,” he amended. “This politically-correct nonsense’ll be the death of me yet.”

Two more men. Seven more fries. And one more missing Gallifrey. It seemed to her that it had been a somewhat unusual name. Petunia? Poppy? Violet?

“Now, I been mentally holding those spots for Morehead and Bisano, seeing as they’ve given me the least amount of trouble. But then again, my boys went to school with Gutierrez, but on the other hand, Burtwell’s momma lives right across the street from me, but on the other hand…” He spread his hands, helpless, then clasped them. “And then there’s you.”

Ana wrenched her mind off flowers—Lavender? Holly?—and back to business. “Me?”

“You have proven yourself a damned hard worker, and even if you are my newest hire, I would hate like hell to lose you. However, I got to live with these men,” said Shelly, waving at the french fries before him. “I can’t just hand ‘em their slips for no reason and boot ‘em to the curb like it’s none of my concern. But the fact is, there’s only real work enough for six full-time paychecks and that has left me to make some hard cuts. As I’m sure you’re thinking right now, you are my most recent hire and under ordinary circumstances, this is where I’d have to give you a short speech about seniority and we’d shake hands and I’d send you off with just one hell of a good reference, wishing you all the best of luck.” He paused, studying her, and said, “I imagine you’ve heard that speech a time or two.”

“I could quote it if you’re having trouble remembering how it starts. Look, this was a good job and I’m genuinely sorry it ended the way it did, but it sure wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been handed my walking papers. I’ll live. And if this—” She pointed at her untouched burger. “—is your way of softening the blow, that’s sweet, but unnecessary. You were under a lot of pressure that day. I understand that now. You told me the day I walked into your office that you didn’t have work for me, but you gave me a shot anyway. I appreciate that. And if the only reason I came out here tonight is to end our association with a handshake instead of a lot of cussing and hard feelings, well, that’s a damn good reason and I’m glad you talked me into it. You don’t owe me any more than that. You’re the boss, I was the newest hire, and we’re both grown-ups.”

“You really have heard this speech before.”

“Hell yeah, I have. Too many times to start flipping tables and screaming up a restaurant just because I get shit-canned. We did that part once already anyway.” She reached across the table, took one of the seven fries, and ate it. “So are we good?” she asked, scooting to the edge of her seat.

“You’re not walking out on me again, are you?”

Ana blinked at him a few times and slowly slid back over in the booth. “What else is there left to say?”

“I already said it, if you were listening.” He took one of her fries off her plate to replace the one she’d eaten. “I got work enough for six paychecks. You want one of ‘em?”

Oh, holy shit, and here it was. He really thought he could dangle a rehire over his belt and she’d just unbuckle it and dive in. And as infuriating as that was, the worst part was still that she had that moment, brief but piercing, when she considered it.

She shook her head—at him, at herself—and said, “I’ll settle for the reference and a handshake.” She put hers out.

He looked at it, then at her.

Ana waited, reminding herself that she really could not flip the table or punch this man or ram that bottle of Tabasco sauce up his ass. When she heard out the proposition she knew damned well was coming, all she could do was refuse.

Shelly waited with her, but he wasn’t as used to it and couldn’t hold out more than a few seconds. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“Fine.” He fidgeted at his glass, glancing around to see who might be in hearing range, then locked eyes with her and said, “I want you back. Even if it means putting five good men…well, four good men and Slater…on part-time pay, I want you back on my crew.”

“Why?”

His mouth thinned. “You want to see a man crawl, is that it?”

Ana took her hand back, unshook. “I want to hear a man say out loud exactly what he means, especially if he expects something out of me.”

He took a long drink and by the look on his face, his soda had soured. “All right,” he said, setting the glass aside. “Here’s the whole story.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Villart took the library from me, as I say, but rumor has it, his lease will not be renewed when it expires at the end of the year. That means either he finds another place to set up shop here in town, and good luck to him on that, or he takes up digs in Hurricane or St. George and commutes. That’s going to push up his expenses, which in turn will cut into his profits, and a little birdie at the bank tells me he’s mortgaged to the hilt as it is. If he moves, and he’s going to end up moving, he’ll either have to wiggle out of that contract or up the price tag. One way or the other, there’s going to be a renegotiation and that puts me back in the running.”

“Uh huh,” said Ana, still waiting for the hook. “And…?”

“And I don’t need competition.”

Ana kept waiting for a beat or two before her irritation cracked and the confusion came out. “Competition?”

“You might want to rethink this dumb-act you got cueing up,” Shelly warned her, good-naturedly enough but with a flat shine in his eyes. “I got a lot of little birdies in this town, little missy. I know you presented an informal proposal to Mrs. Pickett on that genealogy library and she’s got enough clout in the church to make that happen.”

“Informal proposal? What are you talking…oh.”

“Oh? That’s all you got for me, is oh? Little Miss Plain-Talk is telling me oh.” Shelly leaned forward, beard and eyebrows bristling. “Did you or did you not tell Mrs. Pickett you could hand her that genealogy library for 30k in six weeks?”

“Not the whole thing. I told her I couldn’t pave or plumb it in. We discussed the interior work only.”

“Uh huh. For thirty and six.”

“Well, yeah,” said Ana, now defensive. “But those _are_ outside quotes, you know. Certain costs are just what they are—”

“Missy, if you think you are going to steal that job away from me without a fight, you ought to know right now that I am a down-home dirty fighter.”

“Steal…? I was half-asleep and we were just bullshitting in a basement! Why?” she asked narrowly. “What was your bid?”

“Eighty in under two months. Perfectly damn respectable bid and you had to go making me look like a—”

“Like a fucking crook?” Ana supplied incredulously. “Eighty thousand dollars for that glorified closet? That’s a church library, you know! How the hell do you think you’re getting into heaven now?”

“You watch that language!” Lucy called warningly.

Ana immediately dialed down her volume and waved an apology in that direction, but she couldn’t keep the accusation off her face when she looked at Shelly. “You know the only reason I went as high as I did is because I’ve got remodeling work of my own to pay for. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“I got eleven men with forty kids and six grandkids between ‘em,” Shelly retaliated. “Now thanks to you, rumor has it I may not get more than the pave and shell on that whole downtown job.”

“And you think I will? Really? What, like the senior center and all of it?” Ana let out a short laugh. “How do I put in a bid? Is there a form or something down at the government building or do I just email it to someone?”

“The difference between a full build on that job and a pave and shell is the difference between black ink in my book at the end of the day or red,” he said, glaring. “You take that job away from me and it is no exaggeration to say my company may not recover. So you’ll excuse me if I don’t laugh along with you, missy.”

‘And I’m sure you’ll excuse me when I say it’s hard to feel too bad about that when your last assessment of my job skills was mainly focused on my jiggle,’ Ana thought, but she didn’t say it. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” she said instead. “I’m not remotely equipped to handle a job that size.”

“So you say now, but you may go home and change your mind and just see where that leaves me. I can’t underbid you and still pay all my boys, and I can’t cut my crew to the point where I could underbid you and still put the damn build up on schedule. But here’s something you maybe ought to consider,” he said, pointing at her. “I got clout of my own in this area. You’re going to find a lot of doors closed to you when it comes to buying supplies, so either you can try building the whole of downtown out of the damn Lowes or you can work with me.”

Ana leaned back in the booth, thinking. Not about the possibility of taking downtown out of his pocket. That could just wait. No, what needed thinking about was whether or not she had misread some signals here, because this was the second or perhaps even the third time she’d gone running to kick the fuck-me-if-you-want-this-job football only to have him yank it away.

She really didn’t think she was imagining it…but even she had to admit she wasn’t in the most objective frame of mind at the moment. It was _juuuuust_ possible that their prior encounter was making her a bit pricklish tonight.

“So what are you offering?” she asked finally.

Shelly clasped his hands again and looked at her. “You angling for a raise?”

“I’m angling for a reason to come back.”

“I gave you one.”

“You threatened me. Not quite the same thing.”

“Now, now, we could sit here all night talking about who’s leaning on who or we could put that behind us and talk business.”

“Please do. What are you offering?”

Shelly nodded a few times, then picked up one of the fries on the discard pile and held it up. “Big Paulie won’t work with you. Not saying that’s right or wrong, just that it is what it is. So until he’s gone, I got to keep you off his crew.”

“I am not coming back to answer your phone for the next three months, so if that’s your offer, it’s time to shake hands.”

“I can’t give you the dealership build and put the man who’s worked with me thirty years on a desk. But,” he said, holding up his other hand in a stalling gesture, even though Ana had not started walking yet, “I do have all the Green Thumb work that needs attention.”

“Lawn mowing.”

“Outdoors maintenance,” Shelly corrected in his tut-tut voice. “Keeping our historic town looking its best is a lot more work than I think you realize. We got four public parks, including the whole of the canyon recreational area, and more than a dozen individual sites that get weekly attention and a dozen more that get it every other week. It’s a hell of a lot more than Morehead can handle by himself.”

“Would I get a crew?”

“You got Jimmy.”

“That’s a start. And…?”

Shelly studied the fries on the table, nudged a few around with one blunt finger as if weighing its strengths and weaknesses, then said, “Tell you what. I’ll give you Bisano and Wyborn two days a week.”

“How the hell is that a gift?”

“The gift is, I won’t give you Slater. Do this for me,” he said, showing her one more fry before setting it significantly on the other side of his plate, “and you got first refusal of every job that comes my way after Big Paulie’s moved on. Now do we have a deal?”

Ana looked at him, conflicted. She needed the job, but it bothered her that at no point in this entire conversation had he apologized for accusing her of jiggling for an old man. No, he’d swept that whole side of it under his blanket I-was-stressed excuse and in the next breath accused her of stealing his clients and taking the bread out of the mouths of eleven men and forty children. In other words, he didn’t want her back because he knew he’d said or done anything wrong in getting rid of her, he just wanted her back because not having her might cost him a job. A reconciliation based on resentment was no way to rekindle a business relationship.

But she needed the job and here it was, practically string-free.

“I need a few days to tie up some prior commitments,” she said. “I can start Monday.”

“Suits me. So that’s settled, then. How’s the work at…” He paused, picked up his sandwich and took a bite. “…at your aunt’s house coming along?” he finished, chewing.

He didn’t pause _to_ take a bite. He paused, thought Ana, and _then_ took a bite. Curious. What was he going to say? 

At Freddy’s? How did he know? No secrets in a small town…

‘Don’t get paranoid,’ Ana warned herself. If Shelly had a knife to twist, he’d twist it. He’d probably just wanted to remind her she only had the house by taking advantage of someone else’s hard work and misfortune. “It’s coming along,” she told him evenly. “Day by day.”

“Well, things are a bit tight for me at the moment, but once the holidays are over and the dealership is underway, I suppose I could find my way out on the weekends to give you a hand.”

“Unnecessary.”

“Looks like it’s getting on top of you some.” Sandwich still in hand, Shelly tapped a blunt finger below his eye, just where her own was at its puffiest beneath her concealing make-up. “Or was that a social call?”

“It was work,” said Ana. 

“Then you could probably use a hand with it, is my way of thinking.”

“Do you go crying for help every time you get banged up?” she countered. “I’m fine. I don’t need help.”

“You like to keep folks at a distance, don’t you?”

She shrugged, which was a nice compromise between diplomacy and honesty.

“You gonna eat that?” he asked, pointing at her dinner without relinquishing his grip on his own.

“Later.”

“All right. Well.” Popping the last man-sized bite into his mouth, he wiped his hands on his napkin and signaled Lucy again. “I’m going to sweet-talk myself a slice of this young lady’s pie—”

“Old goat,” Lucy said again, already reaching into the case behind the counter.

“—and head on home. Sit on the porch, drink me some lemonade and watch the world turn. Not much to see apart from traffic on Rosewood,” he added. “My great regret in life is that I never snatched up one of those old lots out by the canyon when I had the chance. Lots of years left in me, but retirement’s coming. Be nice to have a view set up for when I finally got enough hours in the day to admire it. Bet you got a hell of a view, don’t you?”

“All the way to Edge of Nowhere,” Ana replied without thinking until after she’d said it how easily it could be misconstrued as an insult.

But Shelly chuckled, after a moment of obvious surprise. “S’what we used to call that high bluff out at the crossing of Old Quarry and Military Drive, back when I was a kid,” he told her. “Out where they planted that new Fazbear’s. Edge of Nowhere.”

“When are you going to tear that old eyesore down?” Lucy demanded, thumping a plate of bluebuckle pie down hard in front of him. All good humor was gone from her eyes and her lips had thinned out to pink slashes.

“Soon as I get the order,” Shelly answered, tucking in. “I don’t tear down buildings for fun. Or for free. You want it gone, bring it up at the next town meeting.”

“Oh, what good would that do?”

“None at all,” said Shelly good-naturedly. “Not while he’s alive. Heck, you put the idea in his head and we’ll probably get another one. He’s been pretty lively lately.”

“Someone ought to set fire to the place,” Lucy declared, looking at Ana. 

Like, right at her. Jesus Christ, did the whole damn town know she was staying there? 

Or did she just look like the likeliest candidate to commit arson for fun? Don’t get paranoid.

“I think you better get this little lady a doggie bag,” Shelly said. “Throw in a piece of pie, would you?”

“No, thanks anyway.”

“You like blueberries? She’ll have some of this delicious bluebuckle, Missus.”

Lucy took Ana’s untouched burger with a sniff and retreated to the counter to box it up.

“We ought to do this again sometime,” Shelly said as Ana slid out from her seat. “Call me old-fashioned, but I think a man ought to know who’s working for him as more than a paystub. Tell you what. Since you managed to wrangle a free holiday out of me, maybe we’ll bump into each other at the park this weekend. We’ll watch the fireworks, talk about something besides work for a spell, maybe knock back a couple hot dogs…” He nodded toward the bag Lucy Gallifrey was even now bringing over. “I know you ladies like to watch your figures, or at least want a man to think you do, but seeing a gal with a healthy appetite don’t bother me.”

“I told you, I have plans.”

“What’s that about?” he asked, like she was blowing off a funeral to go clubbing. He gave her a speculative looking-over as he shoveled clots of blueberries and stained crust into his beard. “You got yourself a little boyfriend?”

“Thanks for dinner,” said Ana and left him.

As she passed the cashier station, she couldn’t help glancing at the family pictures hanging on the wall behind it. Six generations of Gallifreys—mothers and daughters, aunts and uncles, extended cousins, grandparents and great-great-grandbabies. There, off-center, a much younger Tiny Tim and Lucy, with their four girls like flowers scattered around them, and there, far out in the fringes, a more recent picture, nearly-grown-up versions of the laughing girls Ana could sort of remember, but only three of them. Susan, Mary and Christina…

Who was the fourth? And where was she now?


	15. Chapter 15

# CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After dinner with Shelly, Ana drove home. Not to Aunt Easter’s house—Erik Metzger’s house—but to Freddy’s. Home was where the heart was, after all. There were kids down at the quarry, making use of these last hours of daylight by chasing each other around the rocks. She couldn’t exactly hide from them, only hope that their game of war took enough of their attention that a truck climbing up Edge of Nowhere and parking in the pizzeria’s empty lot had escaped their collective eye.

The loading dock door was shut and jammed from within. Ana knocked and watched the tiny shouting dots that were kids at play until Freddy let her in. “How long have they been there?” she asked by way of greeting.

Freddy grunted and looked out at the quarry, holding the door as she ducked under his burly plastic arm. “ABOUT. AN. HOUR. BUT. IT. WILL. BE. DARK. SOON. AND. THEY. WILL. GO. HOME.”

“You’re a trusting soul, aren’t you?”

“HARDLY. BUT. I. KNOW. KIDS,” said Freddy. “THEY’RE. ELEVEN. TWELVE. OLD. ENOUGH. TO. TALK. ABOUT. CHASING. MONSTERS. IN. THE. DAY. TIME. BUT. AT. NIGHT. THEY’RE. STILL. YOUNG. ENOUGH. TO. KNOW. THE. MONSTERS. CHASE. YOU.” Freddy closed the loading dock door and hammered the table leg back into place to lock it. “GIVE. THEM. FIVE. MORE. YEARS. AND. THEY. WILL. TURN. INTO. TROUBLE. FOR. US. UNTIL. THEN. I’M. NOT. WORRIED. BUT. I. AM. WATCHING. THEM. HOW’S THE PIZZA?”

“Excuse me?”

Freddy clicked to himself and gestured toward the bag in her hand with the Gallifrey’s name on the side. “HOW. WAS. YOUR. DINNER.”

“Oh. Fine.” Ana tossed the bag into the box she was using for trash on her way through the kitchen, put her day pack on the counter and opened up her food cupboard. After some deliberation, she selected a tub of ready-eat mac and cheese from her dwindling supplies and popped the top. “It went great, actually. Better than I expected. He gave me my job back.”

Freddy grunted, reaching into the trash to lift out the bag again. He removed the plastic container holding her untouched burger and fries, studied it, and set it on the counter. “WHY?”

“It’s a long story. The gist of it is, I apparently have more friends in this town than I thought I did. He’s super-not happy about it, though. I’m pretty sure I’ll be out on the curb again once the library’s his, but in the meantime, I got a steady paycheck again. I start on Monday.”

“GOOD.” Freddy frowned at the messy splat of blueberries and crumbled crust inside the smaller plastic container, then at her. “WHAT’S. WRONG. WITH. THIS.”

“Nothing,” she said, taking it away from him. She put it back in the bag, added the burger and fries, and tossed it back in the trash. 

“IS. THAT. YOUR. DINNER.”

“No,” said Ana, taking a swallow of room-temperature mac and cheese to prove it. “No, that’s not mine.”

“AN-N-A.”

“Freddy, we are not doing this. Drop it. What time is it anyway?”

Freddy jerked, laughed and spat, “IT’S TIME TO PARTY!”

“Otherwise known as 8:35,” Ana mused, looking at her watch. “That’s like…half an hour of daylight. Shit. Fine. I’ll call it a night, but I’m putting in a wake-up call for four o’clock and if you hit my bunny’s snooze button again, I may have to kick your ass.”

“THE RULES ARE FOR YOUR SAFETY,” he reminded her, folding his arms with a distinctly unworried glower. “DON’T HIT. AND. DON’T TOUCH FREDDY.” 

Ana shook the last few clumps of cheese sauce and soggy pasta into her mouth, tossed the empty tub into the trash, and opened the cupboard again. She contemplated her options and helped herself to one of Rider’s amped-up spikes. She was in for the night and the stuff was getting stale anyway. “Hand me a beer, would you?”

Freddy glanced at the cooler, then at her. Grunting, he went over and fished a bottle out. A water bottle.

“You’re killing me, bear,” said Ana, accepting it with a sigh. “You calling me an alcoholic now? Really? I had two beers yesterday. Not even a whole two beers. Those other bottles were Bonnie’s.”

“SOME. THINGS. DON’T. MIX.”

“What, me and Bonnie?” asked Ana, then looked at her joint and rolled her eyes. “Oh for Christ’s sake. I’ll have you know pot and beer mix just fine. As a matter of fact, you can get pot-infused beer in some places and if anything, it gets me less drunk than the regular kind. Lighten up. You’re not the DARE-Bear.”

Freddy closed his eyes, shook his head, opened them. “WHAT. DO. YOU. WANT. AN-N-A. YOU. WANT. ME. TO. JUST. STAND. HERE. AND. WATCH. YOU—”

“Watch me what? Drink a beer? Smoke some pot? Get over yourself! Prohibition was repealed, like, a hundred goddamn years ago and cannabis is legal to some degree in, like, half these United States! Okay, not _this_ one, but I’m not pushing it on little kids, am I? Who the hell am I hurting?”

“IT’S. NOT. ABOUT. THAT.”

“Horseshit it’s not. But, okay, fine. I’ll play along. What’s it about?”

Freddy looked around, his plastic eyes skipping from one kitchen-related poster to another. _Employees Must Wash Hands_ , read one. _Floor Can Be Slippery When Wet,_ read another. What to do about burns. How to handle knives safely. Avoiding falls, shocks and accidents. A hundred rules for safety and not one of them helpful. When he ran out of walls, he looked up at the open sky, then at Ana again. “WHEN. YOU. SAW. THE. WOOF. WAS. BAD. YOU. DIDN’T. WAIT. FOR. IT. TO. FALL. DOWN. BEFORE. YOU. FIXED. IT.”

All the fun went out of the fight just that fast. Ana stared, open-mouthed, until a distant bang and a short crowing of boyish voices out at the quarry reminded her the world had not stopped after all. She took a breath and that worked, so she took another and said, calmly, “I’m not ‘bad,’ Freddy.”

He blinked twice, then raised his hand and slammed it into his forehead just above and between his eyes. “THAT’S. NOT. WHAT. I. MEANT.”

“I’m not broken,” said Ana, heat rising up from her stomach to throb in her cheeks. “I don’t need fixing. And even if I did—”

“AN-N-A.”

“Even if I did,” she said, louder, “I’m pretty goddamn sure that relying on a giant talking teddy bear to do it for me is _the wrong fucking way to go about it!_ ”

Freddy nodded, his hand now rubbing at his forehead, his eyes still shut tight. His speaker was set at a volume that did not allow him to speak softly, but as much as he could, he muttered, “WHY. COULDN’T. SHE. BE. TEN. I’M. SO. GOOD. WITH. CHILDREN.”

Ana yanked the cooler open, threw the water bottle in it hard enough to splash them both, yanked out a bottle of beer and slammed the lid again. Without another word, she snatched up her day pack and stormed out. Unusual for a bear who was surely programmed to deal with tantrums, Freddy neither called her back nor went after her. He just let her go.

Bonnie was onstage with Chica, just winding down what was, if memory served, their last song and dance before they’d be free to mingle with the guests between sets, but the dining room was the very last place Ana wanted to be right now. She went deeper into the building, walking fast, silently replaying the last few minutes, embellishing his part and hers until she’d worked herself into a good angry lather so that she did not open the door to Pirate Cove as much as bang through it.

She heard an immediate answering rattle-and-thump from the deck of the ship behind Foxy’s curtain, followed by his metallic roar, “WHO GOES THERE? I’LL KEELHAUL THE LOT O’ YE!”

“It’s me,” said Ana, stomping down the ramp to the bottom of the amphitheater. She tossed her day pack onto the front row bench, picked it up when it fell off, and thumped it down harder. That felt good, so she kicked the bench for good measure.

The curtain rustled and drew back on the point of his hook. He looked at her, then up and around the otherwise empty room, and back at her again. “Well, mind-d-d yer manners then,” he said crossly, stepping out in front of the curtain and letting it drop behind him. “I’ve seen men g-g-go gentler to the damn grave than ye came through the bloody-dy-dy door. What’s that-t-t in yer hand?”

“Beer,” said Ana with a defiant thrust of her chin.

He put his hand out, servos whining as he made gimme-motions with his fingers.

“Get your own!” Ana snapped, pulling the bottle that much further back although she herself did not give ground. 

“Ye know the rules. Captain gets the first-t-t share. Is ye a pirate or ain’t ye?” 

Scowling, Ana hung onto the bottle for a few seconds more, then ventured closer and passed it up to him.

He took the cap off with an expert flick of his hook and poured a healthy swallow down his throat. “Ain’t seen much of ye lately-ly-ly,” he remarked, looking the label over while the beer popped and fizzled somewhere inside him.

“I haven’t been around to see.” Ana put the joint between her lips, patting down her pockets. Empty. She dragged her pack closer, rummaging through the detritus of her life and finding nothing but ketchup and condoms. “Fuck. Got a light, Captain?”

“Aye, I might.” He ducked behind the curtain, taking the bottle with him.

Ana waited, watching the wind blow wisps of purpling clouds over the deep orange sky overhead, and soon enough, Foxy’s footsteps came padding back across the stage. He parted the curtain with a lighter but without the bottle.

Ana caught the lighter with a clap of her hands. “Where’s my beer?”

“What beer is that now?” he asked languidly, leaning himself up against the wall.

“Et tu, Foxus?” said Ana and lit up. “I expected better of you.”

“More fool ye. Ye know the d-d-difference between a pirate and a common thief?” Foxy shrugged. “A flag.”

“Oh yeah? Well…” Ana fumed for a bit, smoking, and finally said, “You look stupid in those jeans.”

Foxy glanced down at himself and chuckled. “Ye want me to t-t-take ‘em off?” he drawled, hooking his thumb over the waist and pulling it maybe half an inch lower over his cracked, plastic stomach. 

“No!”

“Love it when ye b-b-blush,” he said, leaving his thumb where it was.

“I’m not.”

“Mm-hm.”

“The sun’s going down.”

“Oh aye?”

“Turns everything pink,” Ana muttered, rubbing at her cheek.

“I see.”

“Fuck you.”

He laughed.

“Sorry,” she said, leaning back against the bench behind her and drawing up her knees. “Just having one of those days. I don’t mean to take it out on you.” 

He shrugged again. “I’m here, ain’t-t-t I? Fire away.”

She shook her head, stubbornly staring down the stars and moons on the curtain. “Doesn’t matter,” she said and it didn’t, but it wouldn’t go away either. 

A few minutes passed while she smoked and Foxy watched her.

“Do you think I’m bad?” Ana asked finally, knowing it was a stupid thing to say, even without factoring in who had said it to her and who she was saying it to now.

“The hell d-d-does it matter what I think?” Foxy asked reasonably.

“It doesn’t. But do you?”

“Eh. Ye could-d-d be worse.” Foxy rolled a shoulder. “Ye could be b-b-better. What do ye c-c-c—CALL A PIRATE WITH TWO—call bad?”

“You know what bad means.”

“I d-d-do, but I wants to hear yer d-d-definition.”

“If you do bad things,” said Ana after a moment’s floundering. “Not like super-bad things, but a lot of them and they add up. It makes you a worse person, so it’s easier to do bad things and that makes you an even worse person. Like that. Maybe you do a couple super-bad things,” she admitted. “And some good stuff, too, but not a lot. So mostly the little bad ones. I guess what I’m asking is, if you do a lot of little bad stuff and some big good stuff, does it balance out? What’s the determining factor of how good a person you are, quality or quantity?”

“Aha.” Foxy pointed at her. “See now, Chica would say yer g-g-getting hung up on the gestalt, forgetting that that’s a pr-pr-principle of perception, not addition.”

Ana blinked at him a few times, looked at the joint between her fingers, and up at him again. “She would?” 

“Aye. Remember yer Koffka, she’d tell ye. The whole is _other_ than the sum of yer parts, not greater than and not by any means greatest-t-t of all considerations. In other words,” he said, sweeping his hook along his torso to display himself as an example, “who we are ain’t-t-t a peculiar shade o’ gray what’s made up of all our b-bl-blacks and all our whites. We are all our choices separate-like, every moment-t-t alongside every other—ARR, ME HEARTIES!—like marbles in a b-b-bowl.”

Ana squinted. “And… _Chica_ would say this? The big yellow one?”

“At every p-p-possible opening, luv. Ye’ve no idea what living with her is like. Last t-t—TIME TO SAIL—time she got herself started-d-d on the subject of invariant-t-t structuralism, she didn’t shut up-p-p for three days. Me, if I subscribe to anything, it’d be more the school o’ relativism and even at that-t-t, I ain’t a hundred percent.” He paused, head cocked, and added in a musing tone, “Course, if ye c-c-could be a hundred percent, could ye really say ye were a relativist a’tall?”

“And a relativist is…?”

“Eh, well…” Foxy scratched at his head, one ear tipping sideways as he thought. “Best way I c-c-can think o’ putting it is, whether a thing be-e-e— _eeeeee_ —” He smacked his speaker and continued without a pause. “—right or wrong be determined more by circumstance than what-t-t may othersuch be acceptable in a right-thinking society.”

Ana nodded thoughtfully. “I get it.”

“Ye do?”

“Sure. So it’s okay from a moral standpoint to eat your fellow passengers if you crash in the Andes, not so much if you’re just delayed on the tarmac for an hour.”

“Aye, that’s it.”

Ana regarded him with a crooked smile through the rising ribbon of smoke. “So now you’re a philosopher.”

“I’m a p-p-pirate, ain’t I?”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“All pirates be philosophers.” Foxy snapped his eyepatch down and raised his hook. “I THINK, THEREFORE I ARRRR!” While she groaned, he went on, “P-P—POINT O’ ME SWORD—Point is, there ain’t-t-t no such thing as good or bad people, only the choices we make.”

“According to Chica,” said Ana, still trying to picture the word ‘gestalt’ coming out of Chica’s mouth. “And that reminds me,” she said, focusing once more on Foxy. “Have you got her beak? I thought I left it in the party room, but I couldn’t find it earlier.”

His ears tipped forward and he pushed himself off the wall at once. “Aye, thought it b-b-best not to leave it laying about. Hold-d-d—FAST TO THE RIGGING, luv, I’ll fetch it out for ye.”

Off he went behind the curtain, back in a minute with Chica’s beak in hand.

“Still no beer,” said Ana, taking it.

“No idea what yer t-t-talking about, lass.”

“Uh huh. Hey, Captain, while we’re on the subject of things you steal, have you got my shirts in there?”

Foxy raised his eyepatch to peer at her with both eyes. “What would-d-d I be doing with yer shirts?”

Ana shrugged. “What would you be doing with a dimebag of pot or a bottle of beer?” she countered. “You find stuff, you keep them, remember? So? Have you found a bunch of my shirts lying around and maybe took them back to your cabin?”

Foxy continued to stare for a moment, not clicking or thinking, but just staring. At last, he puffed air through his joints and static through his speakers in a dry sort of laugh and said, “I like ye, lass. I does. But-t-t not enough to sit around-d-d me bedroom on lonely nights sniffing yer cast-off togs.”

“Are they?” Ana asked.

“Eh?”

“Lonely.”

Foxy’s features were plastic and already as rigid as they came. Nevertheless, he stiffened now. Just how she knew that, she could not have said. It wasn’t visible, but it was there. In the sum of his parts.

Then he smiled, his eyes as sharp as his teeth. “Oh aye,” he growled and winked. “Lonely as a g-g-ghost on a sunken ship, lass. What say ye lose yer long-eared landlubber some night-t-t and sneak yerself into me cabin, eh? I’ll give yer t-t-timbers a right proper shiver.”

“In your dreams, Captain.” Ana pulled a lungful of smoke in and heaved it out again as a sigh of frustration. “Where are they?” she muttered, looking around the Cove as if she expected to find them tied up in the decorative fishing nets.

“Ye ask Fred?”

“I am not speaking to Freddy tonight,” Ana replied pleasantly. “He is an asshole.”

“All right,” said Foxy after only a half-second’s pause. “There’s a story-ry-ry in that I ain’t dumb enough to inquire after. B-B-Back to the subject of yer miss—MIZZENMAST—missing kit. Ye sure they’re here?”

“Yeah,” she said and immediately followed with, “No. I don’t know. I don’t remember wearing them in the last few weeks, but I saw them and I know I saw them here.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing them, I just remember that I know I saw them, if that makes any sense.”

“It don’t,” Foxy assured her. “Ye check the lost-t-t—SOULS TO DAVY JONES—and found?”

“Why would anyone take them there?” she asked. “I’m the only one who wears shirts. I’m not saying I didn’t leave them someplace strange, because, yeah, things were kind of everywhere when I was first moving in, but come on. If you found them, you’d know whose they were, right?”

“If I found ‘em?” He snapped his eyepatch back down and leered at her. “I’d take ‘em to me c-c-cabin.”

“So you do have them.”

“I said ‘if’. As circ-c-cumstance would have it, I did not find them, so I d-d-do not have them, but as I’m sure yer thinking, luv, p-p-pirates ain’t well known for being honest men. If’n ye don’t believe me—” He stepped to one side, sweeping the curtain back invitingly and beckoning with his hook. “—yer welcome to c-c-come on up and look for yerself.”

“That’s all right, I trust you.”

“Do ye now?”

“To a point.”

“And that p-p-point being?”

“The doorway of your cabin. I’ll check the lost and found,” she said as Foxy laughed. “Be right back.”

Taking Chica’s beak with her, Ana left the Cove and made her way by the sun’s dying light through the twisting halls of the pizzeria to the security office. When she opened the cupboard door, she bumped the desk, ‘waking’ Babycakes, who yawned and opened its eyes. Ana ignored its giggling efforts to engage her in conversation as she checked the shelves, which had become a catch-all for Fazbear stuff that either looked too good or hurt too much to throw out. The photos and newspaper clippings from the lobby were here, as well as the lunchbox that had once held the broken pieces of Bonnie’s face and a small assortment of merchandise from the gift shop, but the only articles of clothing were the deep purple security jacket and hat she’d worn on the one occasion she’d tried to get backstage in the ‘disguise’ of an employee. Not a single t-shirt, let alone the dozen or so she’d lost.

Ana sat at the desk in the camping chair she’d left here, one finger on the tip of the cupcake’s candle, rocking the thing back and forth to hear the little cries of dismay this action produced as she tried to think of where else to look. At last, and for no reason except that to say she’d checked there, she scooted her chair back and opened the drawers of the desk. 

Papers, office supplies, a bag of fossilized M&Ms…but in the top drawer, she did find something she’d been unaware she’d misplaced, something she hadn’t yet gotten around to missing. A black three-ring binder, stuffed with pictures, papers and lists of names. Mike Schmidt’s binder. Upon reflection, she could even sort of remember putting it in the drawer. It had seemed like a good place for it at the time. Out of sight, but safely-kept against the day she should want to wallow in doubt and misery.

Ana pulled it out and turned a few pages without really looking at them, knowing she had been looking for something but unable to remember what. Was this it? Oh yes, of course it was. She remembered now—dinner at Gallifrey’s, Shelly talking to Lucy about all her kids, all except one. God, whatever Rider had dusted that weed with, it was really kicking in strong.

Ana turned decisively back to the beginning and flipped swiftly through the posters, but found it difficult to concentrate. After losing her place a few times, she was reduced to reading surnames and looking for Gs. 

Gabney…Guthrie…Gillingham…Gaines…Glover…Godfrey…Gannon. No Gallifreys. Not even one.

Ana closed the binder, but didn’t put it back in the drawer.

‘The Gallifrey girls,’ she thought and tried to picture them in her spinning head. She could almost see them, trailing their mother at the grocery store or walking to the park on Sundays. Lucy Gallifrey, almost unrecognizable in a sundress instead of an apron, pushing baby Susie in a stroller, with the others following behind like ducklings, tallest to smallest: Christina, Mary…and one more.

‘Another little flower for our growing garden,’ thought Ana incongruously, and suddenly she remembered Wendy Rutter handing her that birth announcement, and there on the page just above David’s own name was that of Iris Gallifrey. And just like that, she remembered everything about Iris. Susie had been so much younger and the other two, so much older, but Ana had seen Iris on the playground practically every day. Iris had teased her, pulled her hair, pushed her in the mud…how could she have ever forgotten her?

And what did it mean that Shelly hadn’t asked after her or that her own mother hadn’t mentioned her? What, except that her fate was already known and too painful to rake up?

‘Not everyone who dies in Mammon has to be an animatronic murder victim,’ thought Ana, but still she opened the binder and this time, she read the first names, too.

And there she was. Not Iris Gallifrey, but Iris Ulster.

Ana looked at the photo accompanying the report. Very different from the girl on the wall behind the cash register. Short spiky hair, dyed black and purple. Heavy goth make-up. Pierced lip, her mother must have loved that. A couple arrests for public disturbances and drunkenness, one conviction for destruction of public property. And married, yet, in Vegas, two days after her eighteenth birthday. Maybe to the fella sharing this photo—a boy with more hair, more make-up and more piercings than Iris herself. Ana did not suppose he had been invited to too many Gallifrey Thanksgivings.

They were all out-of-towners, Mike said in her head, and wild kids. Iris looked pretty wild in this picture, all right. Had it been the purple hair that caught Erik’s eye? Or whatever was left of Erik inside that rotted gold suit.

She didn’t believe it. All the Egg-Minders in the world did not prove that this missing girl had been abducted and murdered by a goddamn ghost possessing a bunny costume. She didn’t believe it.

“Who the hell do you think you are,” she murmured, tucking Iris’s photo back into the stack and running her thumb along the edges to hear the sound three hundred and fifty-seven missing people made, “that any of this needs your permission to be real?”

The question woke a yawning cupcake. It giggled, moving its flickering gaze back and forth as if searching for her. “Hi there! I’m Babycakes. What’s your name?”

Ana put the binder back in the drawer and slumped over with a sigh, resting her chin on her arms. “Leave me alone.”

The cupcake clicked, hummed, and said, “Aww! Are you alone? Where’s your mom and dad?”

“Gone.”

“Where are your friends?”

“I don’t have any,” Ana said glumly and as the cupcake clicked and hummed some more, muttered, “I am reduced to making friends with stuffed animals, just like I was—” 

“How old are you?” Babycakes interrupted.

“—four years old,” Ana concluded, then glanced at the humming cupcake and answered its question: “Too old to believe in ghosts.” 

Babycakes giggled, looked comically left and right as its creepy human eyes flashed painfully fast and bright, then lowered its cakey voice to a conspiratorial whisper and said, “I’ve got something for you! A special present I only give to my special friends!”

“Oh yeah?”

Babycakes lifted its frosting cap and spat out one of those stickers on the roll it kept secreted away inside itself. “Go on!” it urged. “But only take one!”

Ana sighed and took a sticker. The tape was old and the perforations didn’t want to tear. The sticker was a cartoon headshot of Foxy, nearly the same picture as was stamped on the doubloons these days, except it was in color, albeit faded color. And dusty. On second thought, this wasn’t a sticker, it was a—

“It’s a lick-and-stick tattoo!” Babycakes crowed, closing its head up to squint at her in a mouthless approximation of a smile. “You just lick it and stick it on your skin!”

“I’m not licking anything that came out of any part of you.”

“Don’t be afraid. It tastes like strawberry!”

“Strawberries aren’t really berries,” Ana replied, picking up Chica’s beak and adopting a chirpy tone as she made the beak say, “It’s a member of the rose family!” Tucking the tattoo into her back pocket, Ana pushed her camp-chair back and got up. “And I got to get this back on her face while I’m still sober. See you later, Sugarbuns.”

“Press it down hard,” Babycakes told her empty chair. “And count to ten with me! One…two…three… Just keep holding it! Four…five…six… Almost there! Seven…eight…nine… You’re getting sleepy, aren’t you? Ten.” The cupcake giggled. “Nighty-night!”

In the dining room, Chica’s pupils snapped open and she shivered forward a step, but Ana put a hand on her chest and told her to hold still. “I HAVE TO G-G-GO NOW,” Chica said, shaking her head and groping one arm out toward Freddy. “I HAVE T-T-TO…GO…NOW.”

“IT’S ALL RIGHT,” he told her, catching her hand and patting it. “BE. CALM. HOLD. STILL. THAT’S AN ORDER.”

“I CAN’T.”

“Listen to the bear,” Ana muttered, sticking her arm past Chica’s trembling jaws and down her throat to chase a dropped pin. “Hold super-still.”

Chica’s eyes fluxed. “I CAN’T!” she said again. “I CAN’T! I CAN’T! I CAN’T! I—”

“OPEN. HER,” said Freddy.

Ana popped Chica’s chest casing a crack and Chica promptly sagged on her pins and went silent. “I kind of hate doing that,” she remarked, prying Chica’s slack jaws apart and sticking her arm back down her throat. “But it does make this easier. What was wrong with her?”

“IT’S T-T-TIME TO PARTY. TIME. TO. CHECK. THE. ARCADE,” said Freddy, already heading out with a troubled frown. “I’LL. GO. DON’T. TURN. HER. ON. UNTIL. I. GET. BACK.” 

“Kay. Bonnie, bring that light over here.”

Freddy walked alone down the East Hall, past the signpost, past the quiet room, past the arcade, to the security office. He picked Babycakes up and held it upside-down until the eyes flashed twice and then shut. When he held it right-side-up again, Babycakes opened its eyes, giggled, and began to chatter.

Freddy listened, his brows low over his glowing eyes. One note of the Toreador March slipped his control, but only one. 

Babycakes asked him how old he was. Babycakes told a joke. Babycakes asked for a hug.

At that last request, Freddy’s fingers shifted on the cupcake’s carapace, but although he easily had the strength to crush the toy he held, his programming prevented him. It had a different shape and served a somewhat separate purpose, but it was still one of his cameras. And regardless of whether or not he was looking out through the cupcake’s eyes, rule number twenty-four was immutable: No animatronic could talk about, dispose of, disable or damage a camera.

But as long as the building had no power, it was just a toy.

So Freddy placed the cupcake in the lost and found box at the bottom of the cupboard and shut the door. He listened to the toy giggle and yawn until it went silent, and then he left it there, in the dark, and returned to the dining room. 

Several minutes passed. 

The sun continued to sink. The noise at the quarry lessened as kids ran out of ammunition, got back on their bikes and went home ahead of their curfews. In the dining room, the show began with Chica singing her new favorite song, _I Feel Pretty_. In the kitchen, Ana collected a bottle of water from the cooler, remembered the tattoo in her pocket, gave it a dunk and applied it after some consideration to her ankle, where Bonnie was less likely to notice it and get his ears in a knot over Foxy’s face being anywhere on her body. Then she rolled herself a second joint and set off for Pirate Cove to do some comparative study on the differences between pirate- and pothead-philosophy. 

She was yawning before she got there, but she thought nothing of it. It had been a long day, after all.


	16. Chapter 16

# CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ana’s dream began at the Freddy’s on Circle Drive, not as she’d last seen it and not as she’d always imagined it was, but in some nightmarish amalgamation of clean and decrepit, operational and closed. Mike Schmidt had been there, dressed in a deep purple uniform with a gold security badge shining on his chest, another on his arm and another on his hat. He did not look at her. He had a tablet in his hands and all his attention was on its screen as he toggled back and forth between two scenes: Ana pulling an electrical outlet out of the wall, its wires plugged directly into that hollow metal post, and Ana fitting Bonnie’s leg back together after repairing it, his knee mechanism plugging directly into his hollow bones.

When she’d looked up, she was sitting at the back booth at Gallifrey’s opposite Mr. Faust. He’d taken his funereal jacket off and rolled up his shirt sleeve so his tattoo showed— _Steel Thunder and Fire._ The flag-stripes rippled as he stirred his coffee. Light glinted off the lenses of his dark glasses in silver pinpoints. He said, “Faust broke ground on the last Fazbear’s, the one I call the Trap, on September 10th of 1999.”

“Why do you call it the Trap?” Ana asked. “Weren’t they all traps, according to you?”

“Spoils of my misspent youth,” he admitted. “I had an over-inflated notion of fair exchange in those days. However…since you’re here…” 

He set his coffee aside, gathered his jacket and his cane, and offered an arm. Ana took it, because manners mattered, and let him lead her through the diner, out of golden afternoon and into night. There was a door in the wall where the jukebox used to be, a metal door, the kind that dropped out of the wall and sealed itself electronically, the kind used in movies to shut out dinosaurs and zombies and other make-believe monsters.

Faust opened it and Ana walked through into blackness. 

“The animatronics at Freddy Fazbear’s are put together a lot like you,” Faust told her and switched on the light.

The light was white. The room shone red. Three hundred and fifty-seven missing people, found. Spare parts lined the shelves, hung from hooks, clogged the drains. Ana walked forward, as one will in a dream. Her boots made squelching sounds. Servos whined as assembled animatronic endoskeletons turned their heads when she passed by. Everywhere she looked, she saw wire and bone, meat and machinery.

“Feel free to look around and do whatever needs doing to prepare your workspace,” Faust said behind her. “Everything is…is quite clean.”

“This isn’t real,” said Ana, backing away. “This is a dream! I can wake up!”

Mr. Faust’s wrinkles deepened in a frown of confusion. “Is this a bad place?” he asked, sounding very vaguely embarrassed. He looked around, as if searching for the source of her distress, then back at her. “I mean, I know it’s dirty and I know it’s run down, but is it bad? Is it really?”

Ana ran, skidding on wet tiles, limp fingers catching at her hair. 

Mr. Faust did not pursue. He merely took off his dark glasses to watch her go, revealing burnt-out sockets with glowing animatronic eyes set inside them. “One of the many troubles that come with lucre is that no one ever corrects your flaws,” he said apologetically as blood dripped from the limbs hanging over him and trickled down his cheeks like tears. “It’s almost over. Don’t you want to see how it ends?”

She did not. She burst through the metal door and it vanished behind her, trapping her in the basement playroom.

The Purple Man was there, Erik Metzger, lying on the ship-shaped bed with his shirt unbuttoned, watching TV. Ana looked around at the screen and saw scenes from Aunt Easter’s home movies: Ana and David playing pirates at the quarry; Ana and David eating pancakes at the kitchen table; Ana and David together in his room, he at the computer making a new game, she on the floor, legs idly kicking while she fixed his broken R/C car.

“This isn’t real either,” said Ana, but she wasn’t as sure.

Erik shrugged, thumbing at the remote to rewind the tape, pulling two children back through time, day by day and year by year. “There’s nothing as beautiful as a woman on her knees, begging.”

“I’m not begging.”

“You will.” He stopped the tape and started it playing again from the beginning. The very beginning: A nurse laying a newborn in a smiling new mother’s arms, a proud father smoothing back her blonde hair to kiss her. “They all do, eventually. Let’s get one thing straight, lady. This is not the Hookman or Sheepsquatch we’re talking about. This is not some cute piece of local color that boosts tourism and gets a summer festival named after it. This shit really happened. Real kids really vanished. Real people really died. This place we’re talking about…” He looked at her, broadly smiling, relaxed as a cat across that deep purple coverlet with the gold stars and moons. “It eats people.”

“I don’t believe that.”

He laughed.

“I don’t!” she insisted. “David went to live with his father!”

“True. But listen. Right now, right this instant, you can buy a special egg tray with LED lights that allows you to scan your eggs for freshness.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to buy one and spend the rest of your life looking at eggs,” Ana argued. “Even if it really happened, even if everything Mike said was real—and it’s not! But it’s over now! I can be happy here. I can be.”

Erik smiled at her and held up David’s Fredbear plushie. “These things are not your friends,” he said gently. “They _will_ kill you. They _will_ eat you. That big teddy bear you love so much—” Erik passed a hand over the toy’s face and, like a magic trick the real Freddy would have been proud of, it became long-eared Plushtrap. Erik grabbed it by its scarred muzzle and pulled its mouth open wide. Behind its grinning metal teeth, Ana could see dried skin stretched tight over a partially crushed skull. “—will let you rot inside him,” Erik finished and threw the toy aside. It hit the wall and slid down, leaving a streak of fresh blood and old oil.

Ana backed away, but it was a dream and the room had no doors. She had nowhere to run, so she could only stand and watch him get up and come for her, his shirt open over his bare chest, all white teeth and shiny eyes, and there was no escape.

But he put his arms around her and his body was warm and safe and familiar. His stubble scratched her cheek. His fingers combed through her forever-unruly hair. “This is going to hurt,” he told her, softly, with love. “Are you ready?”

Ana closed her eyes, her arms falling to her sides only to rise slowly and slip around him. She nodded.

“That’s my girl.” He leaned back, cupping her face between his hands to press his lips to her forehead, like Aunt Easter used to do when checking for a fever. “Wake up.”

“What?”

He kissed her on the cheek next. “Wake up, baby girl.”

She shook her head.

He caught her by the braid and yanked her head back sharply, but without pain. He kissed her on the mouth, hard, so she could feel his smile and the points of his teeth. “Wake up,” he commanded and this time, Ana did.

# * * *

The dream did not end as much as shift sideways and melt into reality. Erik Metzger’s deep purple became Bonnie’s lavender, the death-grip on her braid became a few stray hairs snagged between Bonnie’s knuckle-joints, and the light shining off glasses became Bonnie’s glowing eyes. 

“Hey,” he said and it was Bonnie’s voice now, low in volume but scratchy with static. “It’s four o’clock—TIME TO ROCK! Goddammit. Sorry-ry-ry. You said four, right-t-t? You up?”

Ana rolled toward him and hugged his outstretched arm, burying her face in his soft, highly toxic fibracene fur.

“Oh, hey! HI THERE! You ok-k-kay?”

Was she? She honestly wasn’t sure. She felt like she had a hangover, only without the headache. Her head felt stuffed with wet, warm cotton; her stomach, the same. Coming down with something, most likely. Summer colds were the fucking worst.

“I’m fine,” Ana mumbled and tried to sound like she meant it. “Bad dream.”

“Yeah.” He stroked her hair, petting her with the hand she hadn’t trapped against her body. “Sure—IS A GREAT DAY FOR—didn’t sound like a good-d-d one.”

“I’m fine. I’m just…wait.” Ana lifted her head slightly and looked around. She saw her cardboard closet, the dark sheets that curtained her table, her day pack pillow and the dusky blue ripples of her air mattress. “Who put me to bed?”

“Um…”

“I don’t remember coming to bed,” she said, pulling away from Bonnie and moving the curtain to see the room beyond him for herself, as if there were any doubt at all she was in the dining room. “I was talking to Foxy. We were talking about…about…I don’t know. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on him, but I sure don’t remember leaving.” She looked at Bonnie, unsure what she was feeling, but just like waking up hungover, it was easier to be angry than confused. “Did you seriously come and get me? You don’t even trust me with him when I’m asleep?”

“No,” he said, ears folding back, only to snap up again as he shook his head. “I mean, yes! Of c-c-course I do! I mean, it wasn’t-t-t me!”

“Was it Freddy?”

Before Bonnie could answer, Freddy’s deep voice came growling out of the East Hall: “WAS. WHAT. ME.”

Ana quickly crawled out from under the table, gaining her feet just as Freddy swept the plastic sheets aside and limped in. He switched his eyes on as he walked, scanning the room and checking the gift shop and the lobby before turning his attention on her. 

“WAS. WHAT. ME,” he asked again.

“Did you carry me in here last night?”

“YES.” He left the _And?_ unsaid, but it was there anyway.

“What the hell, bear?”

His brows drew slightly together. “YOU. FELL. A. SLEEP. IN. PIRATE COVE. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?” His gaze shifted to Bonnie with explain-this all over his plastic face. “WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?”

“I d-d-don’t know.”

“The problem is, I’m not some toy that got left out by mistake! You don’t carry me around and you don’t put me places!”

“RULE NUMBER TWO. DON’T YELL.”

“I’m not yelling!” Ana said, loudly.

“YOU. ARE. YELLING. AND. FOR. WHAT,” Freddy demanded, his eyelids tipping the few degrees that made all the difference between confused and annoyed. “I. PUT. YOU. TO. BED.”

“You put me away! No, you didn’t even do that! You wiped me under the table like a piece of chewed-up gum!”

Freddy spread his arms in a broad gesture of defiance. “YOU. FELL. A. SLEEP. IN. PIRATE COVE.”

“Get this through your thick head: You’re not my fucking babysitter!” Ana interrupted, marching forward to thump him on the chest. “You don’t set my bedtime and you don’t put me in my fucking room!”

Freddy backed up a step, his pupils irising fully open in a split second and slow to contract. “RULE NUMBER SIX. DON’T TOUCH FREDDY.”

“Then don’t touch me! You hear me, bear? You don’t pick me up, you don’t put me down, and if you find me being eaten alive by a goddamn python, you don’t fucking unwrap me! Don’t! Touch me! Got that?”

“OKAY,” said Freddy after a moment. It was not agreement. He turned around, talking now to Bonnie even though he looked at neither of them as he continued on his rounds. “I. HAVE. MORE. IMPORTANT. THINGS. TO. DO. YOU. DEAL. WITH. THIS.”

“Deal with my ass,” Ana muttered, yanking her day pack out from under the table.

“AND. GOOD MORNING. TO. YOU. TOO.” Freddy pushed through the plastic and out into the West Hall. As soon as the door shut, his footsteps could no longer be heard, but his voice came through the open ceiling. “NOT. AWAKE. FOR. FIVE. MINUTES. AND. SHE. ALREADY. NEEDS. A. NAP.”

“Fuck you,” Ana muttered, rubbing her face with both hands to disguise the fact that they were trembling. Her head throbbed without pain, a second pulse. Her stomach twisted, neither churning nor settling, just perpetually unsteady. And she was tired, so tired. The sun wasn’t even up yet and she felt like she could easily shut her eyes and sleep until the sun went down again. Why? True, she’d had only four or five hours of sleep, but she’d managed to get by on a lot less without throwing any temper tantrums at teddy bears.

“Are you ok-k-kay?” Bonnie asked.

Ana shook her head and said, “Yeah, I’m fine,” knowing she wasn’t. It was the dream, that was all. That mixed-up, meaningless bag of bad memories and make-believe. Pot had always made her dreams more vivid and whatever Rider was dusting his Black Diamonds with these days was no doubt responsible for the nightmares that were so uncharacteristic of cannabis. 

“But it wasn’t all a dream, was it?” she murmured, just to hear it said out loud where she would have to confront it. Leaving aside the pure fiction of rooms full of human flesh and metal bones, the worst parts of the dream had also been the truest: Bonnie’s knee plugging into his endoskeleton, the outlet plugging into that post in the wall, and the dark whisper at the back of her mind that said whoever built one built the other. And then there was the matter of the motor attached to the air duct, the one that either moved a flap or perhaps slid a pocket panel, but which in either case had been designed for no other reason than to alter the route of passage to anyone inside it, which in turn meant the ducts themselves had absolutely been designed to have someone inside it.

She’d called it a maze and that was exactly what it was. Like Foxy’s Treasure Cave. Like the layout of this entire building. In fact, it could be claimed that every part of the pizzeria had been deliberately designed either to confuse or contain and that made it a trap, just as Mike Schmidt had named it. Mike Schmidt, that paragon of investigative virtue, who also claimed the animatronics were literal murder machines, killing anyone who ventured into their lair and devouring the corpses for the amusement of their undead master, and that was grade-A horseshit.

“It doesn’t have to be all or nothing,” said Ana, looking at Bonnie. 

His ears twitched and he came a little closer, extending one arm in a cautious invitation Ana gratefully accepted. She leaned into his side, listening to his mechanisms pulsing away inside him like any human heart, and he put his arm around her, this murderbot who supposedly preyed upon helpless children and unwary trespassers by the hundreds. No, that part wasn’t true. But that part wasn’t the whole story.

It was time, and indeed, long past time, to lay down the cards. Card Number One: Fred Faust built this pizzeria. Even if his name wasn’t on record as CEO of Fazbear Entertainment, and she had no doubt it was, he was the only one who owned enough of Mammon to get away with the staggering fuckery that made up the building’s infrastructure. Ana had firsthand experience of the willingness of certain officials to look the other way for thirty pieces of proverbial silver, and Faust had the advantage of owning damn near every mortgage and lease in town to boot. And as he’d demonstrated the other day over the matter of the pneumatic arm, he was just as comfortable with strongarm tactics as he was with philanthropy.

So it was futile to argue the fact that Fred Faust built the Trap, which played directly into Card Number Two: It _was_ a trap. And if it had been built for no other reason than to trap and cage a monster, the only logical reason to close it was that the trap had been sprung and the monster caged.

Not the animatronics, though. Despite their admittedly zombie-like appearance, they obviously had no desire to snack on human flesh. And while they might have been barricaded in at one point, they’d had every opportunity to leave since Ana had cleaned the place out. Their programming kept them safely penned up and for that matter, they could probably have been penned up just as easily in a warehouse, or even scrapped out and sent to the crushers. 

And they probably had been. If ever there had been animatronics programmed by Erik Metzger or his father to play their predatory games, Faust had probably gotten rid of them a long time ago. Foxy had said he’d only been washed while this place was open; before that, he’d been ‘sailing the seas’. And Babycakes had been programmed to perform when held by an animatronic, but Chica sure hadn’t been programmed to perform with it. Mike Schmidt had claimed that, apart from the Toys, all the animatronics were the original models, reskinned and reused at each subsequent location, and maybe he’d been right up until Circle Drive, but after that, those animatronics had to have been scrapped. The ones here were no more than replicas, built to lure someone in who didn’t know the originals had been destroyed. 

Her thoughts snagged there. Why was that important? Even if she believed the animatronics had been programmed to play the Metzger family’s sick game, she couldn’t think of them as complicit. Whatever else they were, they were only machines. Hate the shooter, not the gun.

Never mind the reason; what mattered was that it had worked. The replica animatronics had brought the monster out of hiding and into the Trap. The only real question remaining was, who was the monster? Not Springtrap Bonnie and not the ghost Mike had claimed inhabited it. That the suit existed, she would not deny. She wouldn’t even claim the video in which she’d seen it walking had been doctored, although it was a distinct possibility. When all was said and done, all she’d seen on that video was an animatronic, one that had been removed from its home position and could have been programmed to return or at least, to send out a distress signal once it knew it had been stolen. She was getting into Syfy Channel territory here, sure, but that was still way more plausible than ghosts possessing robots. So okay, assume that Springtrap Bonnie went lurching home the night of the Fazfright fire…where would he go? Not back to Circle Drive. Or if he had, someone had come to pick him up. The same mysterious ‘someone’ Faust had built the Trap to catch.

The same someone…who had disappeared when the Trap closed.

Ana turned her face further into Bonnie’s chest and hugged him tighter, but once seen, it could not be unseen. Erik Metzger had been a monster, all right, but he was dead. Someone else had kept his Game going at Circle Drive. Springtrap Bonnie might have been programmed to do the dirty work, but he was a machine, like all the animatronics, no more than the gun in a human hand. And there was only one human who had a reason to protect Erik Metzger’s secrets, who lived in his house…who’d borne him a son.

She must have made a sound. Bonnie leaned back, trying to see her face. Was she crying? Christ, she was. Ana wiped her eyes hurriedly and pulled away, but Bonnie followed her out of the room, as she’d known he would.

“What’s wrong-ong-ong?” he pressed, limping behind her right on her heels all the way to the quiet room. 

“Nothing. I have to get to work,” she said. Her voice cracked, but not with tears. Her mother’s invisible hand was on her throat, choking off her air because no one wanted to hear her whining. She took a few breaths, buckling on her toolbelt and loading it for the day’s tasks. Her hands were not steady, but her voice was when she spoke again. “I’ve got a lot to do today, so you’re probably not going to see much of me. But that’s okay.”

“What just-t-t happened? Are you two fighting-ing-ing? What did he do?”

“Nothing. Tell Freddy I’m sorry I snapped at him. I’m not, he’s an asshole, but you can tell him I said I was. He’ll appreciate that. Assholes like him always do.”

“Ana, please t-t-talk to me!” Bonnie lurched into the room and caught her by the arm. “Tell me what’s wrong-ong-ong!”

“Nothing. I’m fine. I need to work.”

“Ana—”

“I need to work, Bonnie. Let go of me.” She pushed at him, pulled at him, hugged him, maybe hit him. “Please, I need to work!”

It was the only word. She didn’t want to work, but she _needed_ to. It was Friday and she only had the next three days to get the roof on, but more than that, she needed to focus on the roof until she knew she could live with what she found in the basement. 

Because there was a basement in this building, somewhere. It wouldn’t be on any plans, but she knew it was there, hidden. In the parts room, she thought. That was where it had been in Circle Drive, so that was where she’d start looking here. A moving panel on the wall, a concealed lever, a secret stair—she didn’t know what she was looking for, but she had to find it. She had to find the basement. She had to get inside it. She had to find the monster Mr. Faust had buried here. 

She had to find Aunt Easter.

She cried, hard, muffling the little sound she made against Bonnie’s soft, stinking body. But when she was done, she wiped her eyes and looked up at him without flinching. “Let go,” she said and as soon as he did, she went to work.


	17. Chapter 17

# CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Foxy knew something was wrong with Ana long before he saw her. No one told him—no one ever told him anything—but Freddy’s mood underwent a sudden downgrade in the early hours shortly before Ana started thumping around on the roof and soon afterwards, Bonnie came a’calling to ask what Ana and Foxy had been talking about the night before. 

“Hell if I know,” Foxy had replied, honestly taken aback. “Just t-t-talk. I weren’t flirting her up, if that’s what-t-t yer implying.”

“No! I just…”

They both quieted as Ana tromped by overhead to lay down a slab of roofing lumber. She’d have the whole Cove covered before sun-up at this rate. He’d seen his last rosy dawn by the deck of his ship, it seemed. Damn.

When she was gone again, Bonnie had raked a hand over the top of his fuzzy head and lowered his voice. “She woke up in kind of a weird mood. Upset. Really-ly-ly upset. Did she…Was she drinking or…you know.”

Foxy shrugged. “No more’n usual. Less than usual, if anything. Only g-g-got a few puffs into her second joint before she nodded-d-d off on me. And I mean right off. Nearly went-t-t over on her nose, poor lass. I did think that-t-t were a bit unlike her, but hell, it ain’t like she’s p-p-putting a building up single-handed, is it?”

“But you d-d-didn’t have a fight or anything?”

“Seemed cheery enough last-t-t night, just t-t-tired.” He shrugged again, outwardly careless as he gathered in his memories and turned them over for closer inspection. But no, if she’d been upset at all last night, she’d hid it damned well. He hadn’t a clue. “Could b-b-be she were smoking one o’ her strong pegs. Maybe left her a mite d-d-delicate this morning. I don’t know, but that’s all I g-g-got for ye, mate.”

So old Bon went off broody and the next time Fred’s patrol brought him through the room, Foxy asked how Ana was doing. Perfectly innocent question. Freddy in a good mood would say she was fine and keep walking. Freddy in a bad mood would grunt and keep walking. Freddy this morning turned around without a peep and walked out in the other direction.

Coo, what in the hell had she done?

The mystery would just have to keep. At six, he had to power down and by the time he powered up again for the opening set, the whole of Pirate Cove was covered over and he couldn’t even see Ana, much less talk to her.

Although intrigued, Foxy didn’t dwell on it. If Ana was still upset tonight, she’d make it easy enough to hook the story out of her. If she wasn’t, there was no story worth the telling. Either way, there was nothing he could do until dark. One thing a bloke in his situation got good at was waiting.

But near the end of his noon set, the East Hall door creaked open. Foxy could not interrupt his performance, but he managed a glance in that direction, for all the good a glance could do him. It was dark in the Cove again, thanks to Ana’s hard work. Even if his eyes were on, and they weren’t—couldn’t be, not while the restaurant was open—he’d only be looking at the back-side of the curtains anyway.

“—AND WITH ONE MIGHTY SWING OF ME SWORD, I DONE FOR THAT DRAGON AND SENT ITS SCALY HEAD A’ROLLING DOWN THE SILVER STAIR AND OUT THE CASTLE DOORS, AND IF NO ONE’S STOPPED IT, WHY, I SUPPOSE IT MIGHT JUST BE ROLLING YET—” 

He listened for footsteps through his own gruff bellow as he continued to spin the tale of the fearless Captain Fox and the Cursed Castle, but heard none, which meant either that Freddy was only checking on him before continuing his patrol, or it was Ana. He wished he could pull the curtain and see for himself, but as far as his damned programming was concerned, the curtain was up, the lights were on and the amphitheater was full of little kids in paper hats and plastic hooks, and Captain Fox was needed on deck.

“—BROKE OPEN THE LAST LOCK, FLUNG WIDE THE DOOR AND THERE FOUND THE PRINCESS, TIED UP BY HER GOLDEN HAIR ON A GOLDEN RING AND A’WEEPING FOR FEAR OF THE DRAGON, WHO WOULD SURELY RETURN ANY MOMENT TO CRUNCH HER WEE BONES—” 

Was that another creak? If so, it wasn’t the door. Of course, there wasn’t much else it could be. Imagining things, most like. Going strange, as Ana so often said of Freddy. All these years alone in the dark could do that to an animatronic, in whatever odd little drugged-out world she inhabited where notions like that made sense.

“—FETCHED HER HOME AGAIN TO HER FRETTING MOTHER AND THANKFUL FATHER. OH, SACK UPON SACK OF GOLD THEY PRESSED ON ME FOR A REWARD, AND BROUGHT ME IN TO SAMPLE OF THEIR ROYAL HOSPITALITY. OH AYE, I FEASTED OFF ROYAL PLATES THAT NIGHT, AND MADE MERRY WITH ROYAL WINE AND I PASSED THE NIGHT—” A roguish chuckle rolled out of him, along with a wink for the older set among the crowd that wasn’t there. “—AYE, MOST PLEASANTLY INDEED, IN A BED WITH ROYAL SHEETS. BUT SUCH LUXURIES BE NOT TO ME TASTE, FOR I SCARCELY SLEPT ALL NIGHT.” 

Pause for laughter and puzzled looks, depending on the age of the audience. Not a snicker to be heard from Ana, if she was even out there. And was he disappointed? He thought he just might be.

“IN THE MORNING, I WERE ON ME WAY, ME HOLD FULL TO BURSTING WITH THE KING’S COIN AND ME EYE ON THE BLUE HORIZON. OH, THE PRINCESS BEGGED TO SAIL AWAY WITH ME. SAID SHE LOVED ME, POOR LASS.” He scratched out another chuckle, straining his microphones to try and catch one small sound from the room beyond. “SAID SHE’D GIVE UP HER FATHER’S KINGDOM FOR THE LIFE OF A PIRATE QUEEN, BUT WHEN THE TIDE ROLLED OUT, I WERE ON IT AND SHE WERE ON THE SHORE. SHE WERE A BEAUTY, AYE, BUT ME FIRST AND ONLY LOVE IS THE SEA. WELL, I CAN SEE YER ALL FIDGETING TO GET BACK TO YER PIZZA AND SODA POP,” he said as he finally came to the end of that file and clicked over into his outro at last. “AND THERE’S A SWALLOW OR THREE IN THE CAPTAIN’S BOTTLE WHAT’S WAITING FOR ME, SO PULL UP YER ANCHORS AND GET ON WITH YE.”

He paused there for the crows to sing, nodding and waving his hook along with the silence where no music played, and when they had come to the end of it and done their stupid bloody jokes, he turned back to the gangplank, calling, “A FAIR WIND AND FOLLOWING SEAS TO YE, AND TO ALL ME LITTLE HEARTIES, SAIL ON!” and that was the twelve o’clock Friday set done for another week.

Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.

Foxy kept going, because he had to, but only until he reached the control panel set in the bow of the ship and thumped the utterly defunct button that brought the curtain down on that other-plane where everything still worked. Then his program clicked over into mingling time and he was free to hop over the side and pull the curtain back.

Ana was there in the amphitheater, front row center, with a little glow-bauble hanging from her neck (illuminating mostly her chest and forcing on Foxy the unlooked for but not wholly unwelcome fact that she was going braless under that top), a half-gone bottle of water beside her on the bench, and a crowbar leaned up against her boot. “Good show,” she told him, making absolutely no effort to leave now that it was clearly over. “Not quite the way I remember it, but still pretty good.”

“AHOY, LASS!” he said, stepping out in front of the curtain and finding a friendly spot on the wall that needed leaning on. “Not accustomed to seeing ye so early in the d-d-day, but yer welc-c-c—COME TO CROSS SWORDS WITH OLD CAPTAIN FOX! Blast,” he muttered, rubbing at the speaker in his throat with mild embarrassment. “Didn’t mean t-t-to say that.”

“But it’s funny that you should.” She stood up, but not to go, instead coming a few steps closer to the stage. “Can we talk?”

Foxy raised his eyepatch, but it didn’t change the view any (and from this vantage, with her so close and the glow-bauble and all, that view was mostly her cleavage). “Ain’t much of a t-t-talker, lass.” 

“That’s fine.” She came even closer, her head thrown all the way back so she could keep meeting his eyes, just as braless as she could be. “I mostly want to talk about what I want you to do anyway.”

Do? And what was this about?

“Say no more, luv,” he told her, tipping her a wink. “I’ll fetch the rum, ye slip off yer togs.”

She didn’t laugh. “Not quite what I had in mind.”

“Let’s hear it-t-t, then.” He stepped out to the very edge of the stage and hunkered down. “But I only got-t-t eighteen minutes to the next set, so talk fast.”

She nodded but that was all she did for a good half-minute, which didn’t sound like a long while until you were staring it in the face and not down the glowy front of its shirt. At last, she said, “I need you to do something for me.”

Foxy leaned back on his haunches and scratched at the side of his muzzle. “Pirates as a rule ain’t-t-t overly imbued with the helping spirit. Maybe ye should-d-d be asking Chica or Freddy-dy-dy or that big-eared git what’s always mooning after ye, I for-g-g-get his name.”

She was already shaking her head. “It has to be you. And you can’t tell anyone. Promise me that at least, before I say anything.”

“A p-p-pirate’s promise ain’t worth the sand-d-d it’s writ in,” he replied, but his ears were pricked up and quivering at the tips with curiosity. “But if there’s b-b—BLACKMANE, ME MORTAL ENEMY!—black business afoot, I’m in. What are ye after?”

She studied him and he could all but see her little human gears turning, picking out the words she thought would serve her best. “I want to get backstage,” she said finally, without flourishes.

“Ain’t allowed-d-d,” he said with a shrug. “RULE NUMBER ELEVEN: BACKSTAGE DOORS ARE TO REMAIN LOCKED AT ALL TIMES. EMPLOYEES ONLY. ACCESS IS RESTRICTED TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”

“I need to get back there, Foxy.”

“Don’t see how that’s relevant. The rules can’t be b-b-bent nor broke nor overwritten, regar-r—ARR!—ardless of me own will. Although I must-t-t admit, luv, me own will ain’t overly-ly-ly keen on letting ye in neither.”

“Why not? What’s back there?”

“Nothing. Tis empty as me own black heart-t-t.”

“That’s what you all say, but if it were true, you wouldn’t care if I went backstage or not.”

“One thing ain’t nothing to the other, lass. Don’t matter what’s in the room b-b-beyond, the doors have got-t-t to stay shut. Only those what-t-t work here can get in and even they has t-t-to be authorized.”

“By who? The restaurant’s closed! Who’s left to decide who’s authorized personnel and who’s not?”

He cocked an ear at her. “Who do ye think-k-k?”

“That’s horseshit. Why would anyone put a stupid animatronic anywhere on the chain of command?”

“Three reasons,” said Foxy, holding up the appropriate number of fingers. “Firstly-ly-ly, it allows him to keep them what has no b-b-business here out while letting them what works here in after hours, for t-t-technical work and whatnot. Secondly-ly, even an employee-e- _eeeeeeeeee_ —blast. Even them what works here can g-g-get up to no good in rooms they shouldn’t be. And thirdly, ye d-d-don’t have to pay an animatronic the way ye would-d-d a security guard.”

“Why just Freddy then? Why not all of you?”

“Our pr-pr-programming be adaptive and we all adapts in d-d-different ways, don’t we? Hell, ye can t-t-tell that much just by the way we talk. We might all develop different notions of who’s authorized and who ain’t-t-t, so best to have just the one. And Freddy’s the leader of the band. We’re already-dy-dy programmed to follow his orders. So yer wasting yer breath arguing with me,” he concluded as she scowled. “Take it up-p-p with him. What are ye looking for anyhow?”

She was quiet long enough to tell him her next words were a lie: “Parts. What else?”

“Ain’t no p-p-parts in the Parts Room. Place weren’t open long enough to get a ship-p-p—SHIPWRECK—ment in.”

“I want to see it for myself.”

“Bloody hell, woman, we ain’t k-k-keeping Schrodinger’s Animatronic Cat back there! Seeing it d-d-don’t change the fact that the bloody-dy-dy room be empty.” Except Mangle’s nest, lined with the bones of those poor beasts who had happened upon her in the crawlway. Foxy shook that thought off before it could lead him out to a lonely box buried in the desert and said, more gruffly than he intended, “And if’n that’s all ye c-c-came to say, ye can pull anchor and sail on. I got-t-t a lot of nothing to do and I’d like to get on with it.”

“Chica is literally on her last legs,” she said. You had to admire her fortitude, if not her integrity. “I patched her up, but that spray stuff is not designed for moving parts. Every step she takes, that stuff could be breaking down. When that pump blows, she’s going to hit the floor like a four-hundred pound bag of bricks and she’s not getting up again. I have to do something, like now, or the damage will be more than anyone can fix.”

Foxy smiled grimly. “Ye cut-t-t right to the bone, lass, and I likes that in a woman, but Chica herself would t-t-tell ye it be against the rules to let ye in the parts room.”

“Yeah, she probably would,” Ana agreed, “but Chica’s not a pirate. You are. And pirates follow the tide, not rules. Especially when there’s a damsel in distress.”

“Ye’ve some odd notions about pirates.”

“And not to sound rude, but you could use some tuning up yourself.”

“Reckon so, but much as I’d love ye to g-g-grease me gears, it ain’t-t-t me decision. Talk to Fred. Or better yet…” Foxy propped an arm on his bent knee and leaned over it, showing off his toothy smile to its best advantage. “Ye could stop t-t-tugging at heart-strings I ain’t got and tell me what-t-t yer really after.”

She thought about it, but in the end, she sidestepped the question. “Did Freddy tell you specifically not to show me how to get backstage?”

“Ye say that-t-t like there’s a secret to it. Doors are right there, ain’t they? And aye, there b-b-be a door in me cabin, same as that on the main show st-st—STARBOARD BOW—stage, but I’ll no more open it for ye than Fred’ll open his, no matter how prettily ye ask.” He leaned back on his heels to study the effect his words had—none discernable—then scratched at his muzzle and casually added, “How p-p-prettily were ye thinking of asking, out o’ c-c-curiosity?”

She didn’t answer, just stared him down, waiting.

Foxy studied her, tapping one metal finger against his knee idly in time with the Ballad of the Flying Fox. “He did not-t-t,” he said at last. “But he d-d-don’t need to. Look, lass, I’ve no love for the rules, b-b-but I still has to obey ‘em. Until Fred-d-d tells me different, ye don’t-t-t—TELL NO TALES—get in.”

“What if I—”

“Stow yer what ifs and maybes, lass. The rules b-b-be inviolate. If I sees ye trying to set yer foot through one o’ them d-d-doors, I’ll have to pull ye out. Me, Chica, even B-Bon. And if _Fred_ sees ye, he’ll throw yer sweet blushing rudder out in the d-d-desert as far as his arm can hurl ye, and that be a burly bear arm. Ye won’t-t-t even bounce ‘til Sunday. No, luv. Leave them doors be.”

“You and I both know the doors aren’t the only way in.”

He looked at her.

She did not drop her eyes.

“Do we now?” he asked, not bothering to pretend the least confusion.

“I’ve been in those ducts.”

“I remember. And I remember-r-r—ARR!—it nearly killed-d-d ye.”

“I had a scare,” Ana said with an irritated sort of stress on the last word. “I got over it, as someone or another advised me to do. But I didn’t forget it, and what I remember best is a lot of funny scratches I saw on the inside. Some made by something that left three parallel lines, and some made by something that just left one.” She let her gaze drop pointedly to his hand, then his hook, then looked him in the eye again. “I know those ducts connect with the parts room. If you can lead me there—”

“I ain’t sure I c-c-can, but I be d-d-dead sure I won’t.”

Ana’s even temper visibly tilted. “That stupid rule specified the doors.”

“I could argue what-t-t the word ‘access’ means, but I ain’t even t-t-talking about the rules now. I ain’t c-climbing up in that d-d-damned crawlway, not even if ye were to ask-k-k on yer knees.”

“All you have to do is show me how to get there. I’ll go in on my own.”

“No, luv. All I ‘have to do’ is obey me p-p-programming, do me shows and stay sexy. All else is me own p-p-pleasure. I ain’t-t-t helping ye get backstage.”

“I’m asking you to help your friends. I’m asking you to help yourself.” 

“Nice t-tr-try, luv. Yer asking me to side with ye against-t-t Freddy. Well, me programming means I c-c-can’t, me inclination means I won’t and me common sense means I shouldn’t-t-t. And now we’re down to ten minutes, so unless ye’ve something else to say, we really-ly-ly need to get to the tog-slipping and the rum-drinking if I’m going to fire yer cannons before the next show starts.”

“I’ve got something else to say all right.” She stepped back, squared her shoulders, and said, “I challenge you to a duel.”

His right eyebrow twitched up. “Ye can’t be serious.”

“Captain Fox can’t refuse a challenge. It’s part of your core program, you said. Immutable, like your speech patterns.”

“I can’t-t-t go against Freddy either! That’s one o’ the blasted-d-d rules! Absolute!”

“That must be a very uncomfortable feeling for you.”

He barked a laugh, ears forward. “Aye, it is, ye d-d-damned she-witch! Ye have no id-d-dea!”

“Sounds like the only way to resolve it is to accept my challenge and beat me. So. I challenge you to a duel,” she said again, loud and clear. “If I win, you have to tell me how to get backstage.”

“And when I win?” he countered, standing tall and towering over her.

She faced him again, unafraid, and shrugged. “I don’t really need to worry about that, because you’re not going to. But sure, just for giggles, is there something you want from me?”

“Coo, sure st-st-starting to,” he growled, amused in spite of himself. Motioning at her to stay where she was, he ducked back behind the curtain, hooked the deck rails and hopped over, then went to his cabin. He buckled his sword belt on, took the good one out of the scabbard, and fetched two others from the drawer under his so-called bench. No plastic toys, these. They were cheap tin, unsharpened, but shiny and real enough to the wondering eyes of a child and a fitting trophy for those rare occasions when the fearless Captain Fox found himself challenged by a worthy opponent. Ostensibly, the swords were only to be surrendered to a victor, but of course, _that_ had never happened. Foxy gave them out now and then anyway, to those he thought had really earned one. It didn’t happen often, even so. Hell, the last one had been…

A long time ago was what it had been, he told himself, scraping one thumb down the blunt blade and watching sparks skate along the edge. Didn’t bear thinking on, especially not now.

Ah, but he’d been so marvelously grim about it that day. His little jaw squared, his blue eyes shadowed with determination. They’d sparred before, aye, a hundred times over, but on that day, he’d fought like a lion, actually putting Foxy on his guard more than once, and what a battle it had been! Across the Cove, up on tables and off them again, oblivious to the cheers of on-lookers, driving and being driven back and forth until at last his skinny arms had been exhausted of their little strength and he’d been disarmed. He’d dropped to his knees like it was a movie, his blond hair hanging across his sweaty face, slumped and so utterly defeated that it ought to have been funny if not for the tears shining in his hopeless eyes. As the crowd applauded, Foxy had quickly taken the boy to the relative privacy of the tiny curtained stage that had been Pirate Cove at Circle Drive and let him cry out the disappointment where no one could see or hear. He’d refused a dip in the booty chest afterwards, his back stiff with childish pride, but he’d taken the Captain’s cutlass. 

And he’d taken more than that, Foxy thought fondly, shaking his head as he left his cabin now. Because there had been three gold birthday doubloons lined up on the bow of that prop pirate ship façade when Foxy had brought the boy into it, but only two when Foxy got around to noticing after he’d left. After all their years together, as close as kin they were, and the little blighter had burgled him.

Ah, David…

But it was a long time ago, aye, and did not bear thinking on now. 

When he returned to the stage, Ana was waiting with the crowbar she’d left lying up against the bench now cocked against her shoulder. He nodded to it and jerked his chin. “Not with th-th-that. I BE A PROPER PIRATE—and th-this here’s a proper duel.” As soon as her hand was empty, he tossed her one of the swords and jumped down from the stage, twirling his in casual loops to make a whuk-whuk-whukking sound as he circled around her.

“This is dull,” she remarked, feeling at the blade.

“Aye. Ye’ve lost-t-t yer mind, wouldn’t want-t-t ye to lose yer head too.” He snapped his eyepatch down and raised his weapon, ears up and actually feeling pretty damned good for the first time in years. “Ye r-r-ready for yer fate?”

She faced him, mirroring his stance, her sword lightly touching his, and nodded once, silent.

“SO, YE’VE COME TO CROSS SWORDS WITH OLD CAPTAIN FOX, HAVE YE? I’LL BE CHUMMING THE WAVES WITH YER GIZZARDS SOON ENOUGH, YE SCURVY DOG!”

She did not join him in the traditional pirate toast, and so, formalities attended, Foxy reared back and swung.

She darted away, light on her feet as only the living could be, and was behind him in the blink of an eye. He swiveled at the waist, parrying her slashing blow, but she somehow evaded the disarming twist that should have ended the duel right there and he didn’t have the leverage for a return riposte. By the time he’d managed to turn around, she was away again, raining blows around him with remarkable speed and skill.

She had a damned good eye for it, Foxy reflected as he drove her backwards up the amphitheater steps, and she fought like there was actually something at stake. When she swung, it wasn’t at his sword, but at his heart, his neck, his eye. Testing him, hunting for weak spots. No quarter asked and none given, as he used to say in his stories. He kept up his end of the banter—YAR and AVAST and I’LL BE SENDING YER BONES TO blah blah blah and so forth—but she never said a word. All business, this one. Had to admire that.

He had worked her all the way onto the upper level and was trying to aim her at the corner by Kiddie Cove when the East Hall door creaked unexpectedly open and Freddy’s happy/startled voice boomed out, “WHAT. THE. HELLO.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Foxy hollered between the clashing of blades. “All good-d-d here, Fred! Just a—BLACK SPOT—o’ fun!”

Freddy didn’t answer, necessitating a quick peek over the shoulder to make sure all was well on that end, which was all the time Ana needed to leap at him. He staggered under her unexpected weight, catching at the blade of her sword before she could ‘slit’ his throat from behind like the back-climbing little cheat she was, then yanked her over his shoulder and threw her into the stacks of prop cargo, furniture and other oversized thematic junk she had yet to dispose of. She hit hard, but rolled, caught her feet and dashed deeper into cover without ever losing grip on her sword.

“Ye c-c-can run, but ye can’t hide,” he teased, kicking a barrel after her.

She evaded it easily—the junk here was too narrowly arranged to let something as big as a barrel pass—and in answer, ducked around a table, grabbed up a wooden cage with a stuffed parrot lying on the bottom, and hurled it at him. He snatched it out of the air and flung it aside in a broad, powerful movement that he realized only belatedly exposed his full chest after she lunged across the table and stabbed at it. Her sword glanced off his casing and he helped it along with a smack and a backslash she managed to avoid by rolling off the end of the table, which she then seized and flipped on its end. He leapt back, she dove forward, swords met, and by God, he was having a good time! Swords sang and Foxy hollered and the girl just smiled her smile and away they went, bashing and clanging and chasing each other from the crow’s nest to the treasure cave, where she broke away and fled into it.

“RUN WHILE YE CAN,” Foxy bellowed after her, dimly aware that the Toreador March was emanating from Freddy’s speaker note by slow steady note. “YE’LL BE KNEELING SOON ENOUGH!”

“In your dreams, Captain,” she retorted, her voice echoing, disembodied in the dark. 

Away he went, not into the cave, but past Freddy and over the short wall that kept little kids from falling into the amphitheater. His feet hit the benches just twice and then he was at the bottom and running for the mouth of the maze where it came out next to the stage.

He ran in the dark—he didn’t need light here—knowing every twist and turn, every possible hiding spot and every chance to double back, but he never found her. When Foxy burst out into the Cove again, she was down by the stage, laughing at him.

“How in the b-b-bleeding heck did ye g-g-get by me?” he wondered aloud. “There ain’t-t-t but one way through!”

“Oh please. Those walls are modular panels, like any office cubicle farm,” she replied. “I moved them.”

“Ye cheat!”

She tapped her chest with the hilt of her sword. “Pirate.”

He laughed and sprang.

She darted away, making him spin after her, and again she was behind him. The sensor plates behind his knees were gummed solid; he had no warning, no idea that she’d kicked him until his equilibrium alerts went off and he was down with an air-shattering bang on the ground. He started to push himself up, and heard the tap of a sword-point on his back casing.

A moment’s climactic stillness stretched out, broken by Freddy’s unsentimental, “ARE. YOU. DONE.”

“Yeah,” said Ana. “And I won.”

Foxy bent his head and laughed. “Ah, ye innocent wee bl-blush of a thing,” he said, and suddenly rolled. With a sweep of his good arm, he caught her by her own damned knees and threw her down beside him, catching her head before she could knock it on the tiles. Then he was straddling her, his good hand locked around her wrist, pinning that arm and the sword it still held to the floor well above her head. 

She struggled—a spastic buck and shudder more like a sneeze than a true effort to break free—then screwed up her face into an indignant glare. “You cheat!”

He leaned low, tapping her lightly on the tip of her nose with the rounded edge of his hook. “Pirate.”

“I beat you fair and square!” 

He shrugged. “Ye knocked-d-d me down, aye. It ain’t beating-ing me unless it st-st-stops me and I ain’t stopped-d-d. I can’t _be_ stopped.”

Her eyes narrowed, seeming to shine with their own light in the bluish reflection of her bauble.

“This was n-n-never a fight ye could win, lass,” he told her, watching from a comfortable emotional distance as the back of his hook stroked along her flushed cheek. She was a beauty, he thought idly. Not merely pretty, though she surely must have been so in the first flowering of her youth. Hers were looks she’d grown into and not of in the years that followed. If she’d had a different life or maybe were just a different girl, she could have been stunning. As it was, this beautiful face was almost a secret, worn right out in the open where anyone could see it, but no one did.

Except Bonnie, he thought. Bonnie surely knew what he had when he held her, but even Bonnie had never seen her like this—the flush on her cheek and the fire in her eye…aye, and herself on her back beneath him. He chuckled, then shook that off and put his head back in the right game. “It were fine frolic and I’ll admit ye earned-d-d yer sword, but ye can’t beat what c-c-can’t be—”

She reached up with her free hand and caught him by the chest plate. She didn’t open it, but the look in her eyes said she would. “Stopped?” she finished for him.

Foxy studied this new development while Freddy limped heavily over to the amphitheater wall where he could see them. There were more footsteps even after he stopped—Bonnie, coming through the West Hall corridor. He wasn’t allowed in the Cove during the day, no more than Foxy was allowed to leave it (none of them were, except for Freddy, who could go where he wanted), but ‘Cove’ was open to a certain amount of interpretation and Bonnie was certain to be interpreting like a madman right now. If Foxy was still in this position when he interpreted his way out of that corridor, there’d be all hell and a nest of hydras to pay for it. 

So thinking, Foxy glanced up and over at Freddy to gauge what sort of help he might expect from the king’s quarter. Freddy folded his arms and grunted at him. When Foxy’s eyes met Ana’s again, her small smile twisted wider.

“We’ll c-c-call it a draw,” he said wryly.

“The hell we will. I won. Say it.” She looked back as much as she was able, carelessly exposing her pale throat with his hook right there. “That sounds like Bonnie. Hi, Bonnie!”

“HI THERE!” Bonnie bleated, not too damned far off, not by half. “I’M YOUR BEST BUDDY, BONNIE THE BUNNY! WHAT’S YOUR NAME? LET’S GO, GANG! LET’S GO! LET’S GO! LET’S GO LET-T-T’S GO LET’S G-G-GO LET’S—” The sound of a plastic fist punching the wall put an end to that stuttering refrain, followed by Bonnie’s happy/furious, “HI, FOXY! IT’S TIME TO ROCK!”

Growling through his speakers, Foxy leaned back, then let go of her and got up. He sheathed his play-sword and offered his hand; she ignored it and stood without his help, slapping at her knees and the pleasantly rounded seat of her jeans to knock the dust off.

“Ye know I c-c-could have had ye anytime,” he said, watching that hand at work. “I just didn’t want-t-t to hurt ye.”

“Yeah, right, whatever helps you sleep at night.” One more dusting and she tossed her braid back over her shoulders and grinned at him. “I won, that’s what I want to hear you say. And you owe me a prize.”

“It would-d-d appear I do.” Foxy glanced again at Freddy, whose stare had narrowed considerably. He lowered his voice to a scratchy hum. “We’ll settle up later, luv. When we c-c-can be alone.”

She, too, glanced at Freddy. The look she gave him afterwards struck him as just a hair too knowing for a girl who really thought she was dealing with a bunch of toys, but she didn’t say anything. She just collected her water bottle and prybar and headed for the stairs.

“Don’t forget yer sword-d-d,” Foxy called, holding it out.

She didn’t look back. “I already have one.”

At the top of the stairs, Freddy moved to block her way. “WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?” he asked. “WHAT. WAS. THAT. ABOUT.”

“Nothing. I was taking a break, that’s all.”

“THAT’S. ALL. HUH.” Freddy glowered at her for a moment, then let out a grumbling snort and said, “FROM. NOW. ON. NO ROUGH-HOUSING.”

As Freddyisms went, that was mild indeed, but Ana reacted like he’d whipped it out and pissed on her boots. “Jesus Christ, could you not?” she snapped. “For one goddamn day?”

Freddy’s brows went up, then crashed back down. “WHAT. DID. I. DO. NOW.”

“Stop telling me what to fucking do! I don’t work for you! You don’t tell me when and how to take a fucking break!”

“TAKE. ALL. THE. BEAVER DAM. BREAKS. YOU. WANT. BUT. YOU. DON’T. GET. TO. BREAK. US. DOING. IT.” Freddy leaned out over the stairs, towering over her and well aware of it. “NO ROUGH-HOUSING. THAT’S AN ORDER.”

“I don’t take your orders.”

“THIS. IS. MY. HOUSE. AN-N-A.”

“Really?” she shot back. “I don’t see your name on it.”

What small wondering enjoyment Foxy had been taking from this unexpected little show dropped away at once. He stared at Ana, unable to quite believe she’d said that, and then at Freddy, who lost a few more notes of the March, but who otherwise managed not to show emotion as he stared down at her. The sound of Bonnie pacing at the mouth of the corridor was very loud in the silence.

“ALL RIGHT,” Freddy said finally, calmly. “YOU. NEED. TO. TAKE. A. WALK. OR. TAKE. A. NAP. ONE. OR. THE. OTHER. GO.”

“And there you go again, telling me what to do. Well, break-time’s over, so I’ll get back to work just as soon as someone moves their giant ursine ass out of my way.”

“MIND YOUR MANNERS,” growled Freddy, stepping back.

“Then mind your business.” She climbed the last steps, walked with her head high right past a black-eyed bear, and out into the West Hall, patting Bonnie (also black-eyed, but likely for different reasons) on the chest in passing.

“ARE YOU OKAY?” Freddy asked and never mind his comically exaggerated tone of concern, he was mad as hell. 

“Oh aye. C-C-C—SET A COURSE FOR ADVENTURE—Course I am,” Foxy replied in his most soothing voice…which wasn’t, very. “It were all in f-f—FUN ON THE HIGH SEAS! Sorry if I stirred-d-d her up there at the end, mate. Sore loser, her.”

“YOU. WERE. FIGHTING.” Freddy stalked over to the corridor and looked out, but Ana was long gone. “WHAT. ABOUT.”

“Relax yerself, Fred, that weren’t a fight. That j-j-just be how we—WEE SEA DEVILS!—pirates flirt. Tell ye what, Bon, I’m s-s-st—STAR TO SAIL HER BY—starting to see what-t-t ye see in her, although d-d-damned if I know what she sees in ye.”

“SOME THINGS AREN’T SAFE TO TOUCH!” Bonnie said cheerfully, ears flat and hands in fists. “REMEMBER, KIDS, IF IT’S HOT, BROKEN OR BELONGS TO SOMEONE ELSE, IT’S BEST TO KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF!”

“Aye, she is hot, ain’t she?” said Foxy with an appreciative growl of his own.

“THAT’S ENOUGH,” said Freddy.

Bonnie began to pace again, his eyes fluxing black and white and black again, unblinking, locked on Foxy. 

“And a wee b-b-bit broken. As for b-b-belonging, I didn’t see yer name on her. Course, I ain’t looked everywhere yet-t-t,” he added with a chuckle. “I’ll be making a th-th-thorough search later on, lad, I’ll let ye know if I find it.”

“FOXY. I. SAID. THAT’S ENOUGH.”

Bonnie looked around at the walls within his limited reach, seized a not-that-decorative anchor and hurled it at him. Foxy hit the floor and let the anchor howl by overhead, cracking the hull of his ship right through the curtain. Foxy raised his head, laughing, and had to duck and cover again immediately to avoid the giant novelty seashells, starfish and other missiles Bonnie let fire.

“I. SAID—” Freddy’s huge hand slapped a plastic marlin out of the air; it seemed to explode at the end of his arm, showering the stairs and half the amphitheater with fake fish parts. “— _THAT’S ENOUGH!_ ” he roared, really roared, enough to hum the mics in Foxy’s ears. 

Foxy shut up and pretended the point of his hook needed picking at while Bonnie resumed pacing at the mouth of the corridor.

“DON’T. I. HAVE. ENOUGH. TO. DEAL. WITH. WITHOUT. YOU. TWO. ALWAYS. AT. EACH. OTHER’S. NECKS,” Freddy demanded, dividing his glare somewhat less than equally between them. 

“All right, all right. I’m g-g-going.” Foxy swept the remains of a plastic seahorse aside and made to ascend the stage—only a few minutes left before the next set anyway and he had to be in his cabin before it started—but again, he stopped and looked back. “Did she say she already-dy-dy had one?”

“ONE. WHAT.”

“Me sword-d-d. I offered her the Captain’s c-c-cutlass and she said…she said she already-dy-dy had one?”

“YES.” Freddy, also on his way back to his own show stage, paused and frowned. “WHY?”

“I never-r-r lost a sword to a girl. And Ana’s said she ain’t never b-b-been to a Freddy’s before she come here, so where’d she g-g-get one o’ me swords?”

“I DON’T KNOW,” said Freddy, who plainly also didn’t think it mattered. 

“It’s odd, is all. It’s been lads alone what carried away the C-C-C—CALL ME CAPTAIN FOX—Captain’s cutlass. I hardly ever so much as sp—ARR!—spar with the lasses.” Foxy studied the blade he still held. Not much of a weapon, maybe, but a damn fine toy and one a child should have treasured too much to throw out where a young Ana might have found it. Or had she stolen it? She had every other natural pirate’s instinct, why not that one? 

“IS. IT. IMPORTANT.”

“Don’t-t-t know, but it’s a mystery, ain’t it? The Mystery o’ the Second-d-d Sword, just the thing for a curious chap-p-p like me to mull over on a lonely night-t-t.” And without conscious spite but perfectly aware that Bonnie was up there watching and listening, Foxy added, “Although not-t-t as much fun to ponder as the Mystery o’ the Missing Bra, eh?” 

Bonnie spat out static that was very nearly words, but Freddy held up a hand to stop him before that went any further.

“BONNIE. GO,” Freddy ordered. “IT’S ALMOST TIME TO START THE SHOW! GO,” he said again, pointing at the corridor until Bonnie, swearing, maneuvered himself around and left, punching the painted Foxy on the deck of the painted Flying Fox as he went.

Static receded through the building, reminding Foxy in a deeply unpleasant way of Mangle.

“He’s losing-ing it, ain’t he?” Foxy asked quietly.

Freddy didn’t answer.

“Is she m-m-making it better or worse, being here?”

Freddy stayed quiet maybe a minute, thinking. “BETTER,” he said finally, and cast a scowling eye down at Foxy. “YOU. ARE. THE. ONE. WHO. MAKES. IT.” He clicked, frustrated, then spat out, “WORCHESTERSHIRE!” and sighed.

Foxy blinked and cocked his head, not quite laughing. “Where th-th-the hell did that come from?”

“CHICA LOVES TO COOK, ROUTINE FORTY-FOUR.” Freddy shook his head, his eyes turning briefly upward, then turned as serious as his features allowed and said, “THIS. ISN’T. FUNNY. FOXY. HE. COULD. GO. BLACK.”

“It was just-t-t talk, for God’s sake! He’s t-t-too damn sensitive!”

“YES. HE. IS,” Freddy said evenly. “WHICH. MEANS. WHEN. HE. GOES. BLACK. HE. MIGHT. NOT. COME. OUT. OF. IT.”

“I know, I know,” Foxy muttered, scratching his hook across his chest. “Coo, Fred, somewhere along the way-ay-ay, I turned really mean. I was thinking about-t-t me sword and the rest of it just…p-p-popped out.”

Freddy grunted, but he was clearly in no mood to hear excuses. It was nearly one o’clock, they both had shows to start, and whatever was breaking apart in Bonnie was more pressing than the silly matter of a sword. Which might not be one of his, if it even existed at all and wasn’t just something Ana said to walk away on.

“I’ll watch me mouth from now on,” said Foxy, once more climbing onstage. “Good enough for ye?”

“NO.”

“Well, I ain’t apologizing to the b-b-big-eared git, so if that’s what yer fishing for—”

“LEAVE. HER. ALONE.”

Time was ticking down, immoveable as a mountain, but still Foxy came back and moved the curtain. “Is that-t-t an order?”

Freddy’s eyelids slanted upward, giving him a weary, faintly pained expression. “DOES. IT. NEED. TO. BE.”

“I ain’t-t-t chasing her d-d-down, am I? But if she knocks on me d-d-door, who are ye to t-t-tell me I can’t let-t-t her in? I been alone as l-l-long—LONG JOHN—aye, damn ye, Long John Silver. As long as anyone else. Besides,” he said, forced to let the curtain drop as his feet moved him to his cabin, just ahead of the relentless clock, “it’s the p-pr-prize what picks the winner in this g-g-game, mate. She says she’s his.” 

And he laughed, in part because the idea of a flesh-and-blood woman, particularly one as striking-fine as Ana, picking an animatronic anything over a flesh-and-blood man was still funny, but funnier still, she’d picked the bunny who sang about manners and sharing over the pirate who battled dragons and dug up gold, and funniest of all…that genuinely bothered him.


	18. Chapter 18

# CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In the hopes that getting away from the pizzeria would clear her head, Ana gathered up her clothes and went to the laundromat. Lulled by the swish and thump of the washers and dryers around her, she even slept for a while, and that helped, too. She never quite lost the summer cold/painless hangover sensation stuffing up her skull, but at least it didn’t feel as densely packed.

She drove back to Freddy’s in a moderately good mood with clean clothes, a bag of ice, and a bucket of chicken from the gas station, mentally laying out the next steps of the roofing job and feeling like herself for the first time that day and not just some ghost possessing her own body. With any luck, she’d get the rest of the underdeck laid before dark and have a few good hours after that, with the cover of night and fireworks going off on every side, to nail everything down. If she could get the felt and fiberglass down too, she’d be ready to start applying the asphalt just as soon as she rolled out of bed tomorrow, which in turn meant everything should be stable enough by the next morning that she could spend the daylight hours fussing with the fucking self-stick thermoset membrane and all night hammering out her frustrations on the top-deck. She could do this. It would take all her time, energy and Adderall, but come Monday, she’d be back at her day-job on Shelly’s crew and there would be a roof on this building.

Freddy was onstage in the middle of his magic act with Bonnie playing a silent soundtrack behind him when she came in, struggling to carry everything because she didn’t want to make two trips. When it became inevitable that she was going to drop something, she went ahead and dropped the ice. That freed a hand, but apparently removed one of the essential supports for the chicken, which also fell. Oh well. Ana kicked it aside and continued on her way. She’d had two pieces in the car anyway; she still had ramen and jerky if she got hungry later. She put her laundry basket down on her table with a groan of relief, flexing her pinched fingers—the basket company must get its comfort handgrips from the same place her generator company got theirs—shrugged her day pack off her shoulder and tucked it under the table, then went back for the ice and dumped it in the cooler, her mind thirty feet above her physical body, hard at work on what was left of the underdeck.

She began to empty her laundry basket, shaking each item free of the tangle and putting it neatly away in the cardboard cubbies—shirts on the left, jeans on the right, panties, bras and socks in the middle—folding fast but not sloppy, anxious to get to work. Still, as the basket emptied and the cubbies did not fill, a nagging question resurfaced: Where the hell were all her shirts? She only owned five pairs of jeans, and they were all accounted for, but the stack of tees was half what it should be and she was fairly sure she was missing some panties, too.

Ana double-checked her day pack, but it held only the one spare set of clothes she always kept in it for emergencies—a ragged pair of jeans and her F U Athletic Department tee, the one she’d torn the morning after waking up in Freddy’s for the first time, neither one of them really fit to be worn in public anymore. Had she just left the rest back at the house? She’d packed fast, but not carelessly; thinking back, she had a distinct memory of picking up all her laundry and throwing it in the box, and she’d just come back from the laundromat then, so it ought to all be here. If it was just a sock or a bra, that would be one thing, but this was way more than she could absent-mindedly misplace.

In growing frustration, Ana scouted out some of the other cardboard boxes that had accompanied her to the restaurant and eventually ended up in the kitchen, where, as she was futilely rummaging through tools and other supplies, she had a sudden recollection of Freddy going through her clothes. And folding her shirts. Into two stacks, one considerably larger than the other.

Immediately after this memory surfaced, Ana realized what all her missing clothes had in common.

Back went Ana to the dining room, shooting Freddy a glare as she yanked out the chair holding her shirts and pulled them all out one at a time, unfolding each to see which ones she still had. Velociraptor and Rubik’s cube. _Bitch, please._ Mordor Fun-Run. Bacardi bat. Sugar skull. And the one she was wearing, the one with the rib cage on the front. _Lick me, Stop staring at my boobs, Die doing what I love_ —all gone. In fact, every shirt that contained suggestive imagery or profanity was gone.

Ana fished through her panties next, but wasn’t as sure which might be missing, apart from the one inviting onlookers to pet a certain kitty and one even more forthright, that had simply said _All You Can Eat, $4.99._ However, the absence of those two was certainly significant.

Throwing down a handful of boring undies, she turned and snapped, “All right, where are they?”

No response. The show went on.

Ana went down the hall to the security office, on the off-chance he’d put them in the Lost and Found box since the last time she’d checked. He had not. Nor were they in any of the lockers in the employee’s lounge. Beyond that, she had no idea where he’d put them.

Ana stalked back to the dining room and stood unavoidably in front of the stage, close enough that she could feel the hot air puffing out of Freddy’s knuckles when his arm swept out in a bow. “What did you do with my stuff?”

No answer, no acknowledgment.

“Look, damn it, I know you can hear me and I know you can stop whenever you want, so you better start talking. Where are my goddamned clothes?”

Freddy took his hat off, proving to the phantom audience that it was indeed empty, but before he could reach in and pull something out, Ana snatched it out of his hand.

Freddy’s cheerful, slightly goofy expression changed in an instant to a scowl. He grabbed his hat back and held it out of her reach, pointing at her with his other hand. “DON’T INTERRUPT THE PERFORMANCE,” he said, heartily enough, but with a real growl under his words.

“Well, then, don’t fucking ignore me!”

Bonnie began to twitch.

“CALM. DOWN.” Freddy glanced behind him. “BOTH. OF. YOU.” He turned his glare on Ana again. “THE SHOW HAS STARTED. TAKE A SEAT, KIDS! WE’LL. TALK. ABOUT. THIS. LATER.”

“I say the show is fucking over and if you turn your fucking back on me, I will knock you on your fucking face!”

“ALL. RIGHT. THAT’S. ENOUGH.” Freddy put his hat on and aimed his pointing finger at the front lobby. “YOU’VE. BEEN. GIVING. ME. SAUCE. ALL. DAY. AND. I. AM. ALL. DONE. TAKING. IT. AS. OF. NOW. YOU. ARE. IN. A. TIME-OUT.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“IT. MEANS. WHAT. EVER. YOUR. PROBLEM. IS. YOU. GO. SOME. WHERE. ELSE. AND. SOLVE. IT. AND. DON’T. COME. BACK. UNTIL. YOU’RE. READY. TO. ACT. LIKE. AN. ADULT.” 

“I’m not leaving until I get an answer, bear.”

“UNLESS. THE. QUESTION. IS. HOW. FAR. CAN. FREDDY. THROW. YOU. OUT. OF. THIS. BUILDING. YOU’RE. NOT. GOING. TO. LIKE. THE. ANSWER. I. GIVE. YOU,” Freddy retorted, stomping over to put a hand on Bonnie’s shoulder. “I. SAID. CALM. DOWN. EVERYTHING. IS. FINE. AND. STOP. CALLING. ME. BEAR.”

“Everything is not fine, damn it. You remember when I first brought my stuff over and you were digging through my laundry?”

Freddy turned his attention to Bonnie. “OPEN. YOUR. EYES. BE. CALM. NOT. NOW. AN-N-A.”

“Yes, now, Freddy!”

“WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.”

“You’re sure about to be. I’m missing, like, a dozen t-shirts and you took them, didn’t you? Didn’t you?!”

He fussed with Bonnie and didn’t answer, but he knew. Freddy’s ears were not as expressive as Bonnie’s or even Foxy’s, but they moved in ways that were instantly relatable to anyone who had gotten stoned and watched animal cartoons and right now, Freddy’s ears said he knew exactly where her shirts were and he didn’t want to tell her.

“Yeah, yeah, they’re raunchy and you don’t approve,” she snapped. “I don’t give a tin shit for your Puritan sensibilities. I want my goddamn shirts back, so where are they?” 

Freddy took an extra pull of air, straightened his ears, and turned to face her. “GONE.”

“Gone where?” she asked impatiently and then suddenly recalled walking in on Freddy on the loading dock, uncharacteristically helping out with the haul-away. She gaped at him a moment, then found her voice and shouted, “Did you fucking _throw them away_?”

“RULE NUMBER TWO, DON’T YELL.”

“Rule number thirty-fucking-three! Leave Ana’s shit alone! Did you or did you not throw my shirts in the fucking trailer with the trash? You did, didn’t you? You wrapped them in that disgusting curtain and threw them away!”

“IS. IT. UNLAWFUL. TO. REMOVE. GARBAGE.”

“I don’t believe you said that,” she said, almost calmly, then shouted, “You went through my fucking underwear and you have the goddamned gall to call _me_ trashy?”

The West Hall door creaked open just wide enough to show one of Chica’s wide purple eyes. 

Freddy looked that way, then at Bonnie, still shaking his way through his part of the performance, and finally at Ana again. “I. DID. NOT. CALL. YOU—”

“Fuck you, you fascist fucking lunatic! My clothes are gone! Do you get that? Gone! That trailer got taken away weeks ago! Oh my God, if you had balls, I’d be kicking them so hard right now, they’d pop out your goddamned ear-holes!”

“WATCH. YOUR. LANGUAGE.”

“Watch my tits, asshole! On the scale of bad behavior, swearing is way down the fucking rail from stealing! You don’t get to tell me how to run my mouth when you’re pitching out my goddamned clothes!”

“IS EVERYTHING OKAY IN HERE?” Chica ventured, pushing the door open a little wider.

“EVERYTHING. IS. FINE. GO. ON. BONNIE. OPEN. YOUR. EYES. AN-N-A. THAT’S. ENOUGH. YOU. DON’T. GET. TO. TALK. TO. ME. LIKE. THAT.”

“I’ll talk to you however the hell I want! Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I’M FREDDY FAZBEAR. I’M THE LEADER OF THE BAND.”

“That’s right. Freddy fucking Fazbear, leader of the Fazbear fucking Band, _not_ my father _or_ commander in chief of the Fashion Police _or_ the supreme court chancellor of the Intergalactic Modesty Council! You’re a fucking prop in a fucking pizza parlor, and you’re also a panty fetishist and a fucking thief!”

“TIME-OUT. AN-N-A. THAT’S ENOUGH.”

“Fuck you! Get this through your fat plastic head: You don’t tell me what to do! And you for goddamn sure don’t tell me how to dress! I don’t give a chicken-fried shit what you think about my clothes, just keep your fucking hands off them or I will personally buy all the cum-dumpster tees in the whole fucking state of Utah and pound them up your big bear ass!”

“I. SAID. TIME-OUT.”

“And I said, fuck you!”

Freddy’s features shifted, giving her a split-second glimpse of a textbook-perfect, ‘Oh, I am _done_ with this shit,’ expression before he tossed his microphone behind him on the padded stage and seized her by the arm. He started walking, dragging her with him along the front of the stage until he reached the stairs and descended. There, he scooped her up like a tantruming toddler and carried her on his shoulder out of the room and into the kitchen. 

Bonnie let out one of those electronic howls, but it was Chica who followed them, wringing her hands and pleading in her sunny, earnest way to come back, that everyone got mad sometimes, but it helped to say I’m sorry and let’s just all be friends.

Freddy wasn’t having it, but rather than carry her out of the restaurant and drop her on the stoop, he opened the freezer and set Ana with a thump in the doorway.

“IS THERE SOMETHING YOU WANT TO SAY TO ME?” he asked.

There certainly was. 

“Kiss my ass, you panty-stealing, pompous pricklord! Take your precious fucking rulebook and ram it! You don’t like the way I dress, huh? You don’t like the way I talk, you don’t like the way I act, you don’t like the way I brush my fucking teeth in the morning! I can’t believe I spent all those years looking up to you, like you were any kind of fucking role-model. You know what you are? You’re nothing but another sanctimonious Mammon thundercunt, minding everybody’s business but your own! Well let me tell you something, when I am tits-deep shoveling out the fucking filth you’ve been wallowing in for twelve fucking years, I’ll wear whatever the fuck I want and you don’t get a fucking vote, you uptight, broke-down, self-important shitgibbon!”

“WOW,” said Chica, picking up a pizza tray and holding it in front of her like a shield.

“Vocabulary power!” spat Ana and slapped him on the nose.

Boop.

Freddy reared back, both hands clamped over his muzzle. Chica dropped the pizza tray with a clatter and grabbed her own beak, her eyes huge. In the dining room, Bonnie let out a shriek of static and crashed heavily to the stage floor.

Out in the quarry, someone lit a bottle rocket. It screamed as Freddy slowly lowered his arms, higher and higher, until, somehow still unexpectedly, it exploded and then there was silence. 

“YOU,” he said. 

“Me, what?” Ana challenged, thrusting her own nose at him, daring him to slap. “Go on, say it. Loud and proud.”

Freddy took several ‘breaths’, notes of the Toreador March dropping among the wheezing of his fan and whining of his servos. “YOU. CAN. COME. OUT. WHEN. YOU. ARE. READY. TO. APOLOGIZE.”

And with that, he shoved Ana into the freezer and shut the door.

Ana threw herself against it at once, beating her palms all around its crusty, dented surface, but there was no latch on this side. None at all. Expanding her search in the blackness, she encountered wire racks along the walls—some dented, some entirely collapsed, none empty. When she walked, her feet crunched through several inches of desiccated residue that had once been the soup that formed when several hundred pounds of frozen food thawed and rotted and turned to dust. The smell, now that adrenaline had ebbed and allowed her to notice such things, was thankfully dried to a shadow of its potential, but still made a noxious fugue of rotten meat, sour milk, mildew and other smells, even worse, all of them so thick in the air that they left a slimy taint on the back of her throat. 

Ana pulled the neck of her shirt (one of only six she now owned in the whole fucking world, thanks to Freddy) up over her mouth and nose, forcing herself to take shallow breaths as she tried to think. Escape wasn’t really an option. Her blind explorations had revealed a number of massive fist-shaped impressions in the walls with short, bristly fibers imbedded in them. If she could see them, she knew those fibers would be purple. Maybe yellow and rust-red too, but mostly purple. These were Bonnie’s footprints she was walking in, Bonnie’s rage beaten into the walls, and if this freezer could hold Bonnie, it could hold her.

The freezer’s insulated walls were thick, but not soundproofed. She could hear the rumble of Freddy’s voice, even if she couldn’t make out words, soon followed by the higher rise and fall of Chica resuming her routine. With effort, she could even hear Bonnie in the dining room, either trying to sing or trying not to, and she thought Freddy might be talking to him too, because there were times when his growling voice seemed further away, but there were also times Ana was sure she could hear his heavy footsteps directly in front of the freezer, so he never went far.

Staying close. Waiting for her to apologize.

And she’d better, she thought sourly. It was July in the Utahan desert and she was standing in a metal box that may or may not be airtight. Relying upon an animatronic to remember that humans could die of too much heat and too little oxygen was a hell of a risk. Furthermore, although the smell in here probably wouldn’t kill her, the dust she was kicking up with every step might if she kept breathing it in, giving all this lovely rotted gunk a wet, warm place in her lungs to incubate.

She knew it and still couldn’t bring herself to do it for a long time, long enough that Bonnie’s faint song eventually ended and soon his stuttering, staticky voice was there in the kitchen, talking under and over Freddy’s, neither of them close to the freezer. She could easily imagine Freddy blocking the doorway as Bonnie tried to get around him, to get at her. And that was what finally broke her down, because as pissed as she was, she didn’t want Bonnie to get in trouble, too.

“Freddy?” she called.

Animatronic voices silenced.

“Freddy, open the door.” Ana rolled her eyes. “Please.”

Bonnie’s voice. Freddy’s gruff answer, mostly incoherent, but ending with, “STAY. BACK. BE. QUIET. KEEP. OUT. OF. THIS. THAT’S AN ORDER.” Then, footsteps, coming right up to the door and stopping. “IS THERE SOMETHING YOU WANT TO SAY TO ME?”

“I’m sorry I called you a shitgibbon,” said Ana.

“AND?”

“And a thundercunt and a pricklord and a douchenozzle.”

A pause.

“YOU. DIDN’T. CALL. ME. THAT. LAST. ONE.”

“Oh. Well, I meant to.”

A grunt. “AND. THE. REST.”

“I’m going to need a minute more on those, but I am sorry for the others. Also for the kiss my ass bit and I’m working on the ram it.”

She waited.

He opened the door, but immediately stepped forward so that it was impossible for her to get out. “WE. NEED. TO. HAVE. AN. UNDERSTAND.” He clicked a few times and finished, with obvious dissatisfaction, “THING.”

“Okay.”

“THIS. IS. MY. HOUSE. AND. IN. MY. HOUSE. YOU. MIND YOUR MANNERS. YOU. CAN. CUSS. IN. FRONT. OF ME. NOT. AT. ME. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? I. DON’T. CARE. HOW. MAD. YOU. ARE. YOU. SHOW. ME. SOME. RESPECT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

“Yes,” she said, quite calmly, all things considered. “Now how about the understanding about you keeping your grubby paws out of my damn things? I think I deserve an apology for you throwing my shirts out.”

His ears moved, but his gaze never dropped and his tone held no apology when he said, “THOSE. THINGS. WERE. GARBAGE. I. THREW. THEM. OUT.” 

“No, they weren’t garbage, Freddy! Regardless of what you thought of them, they were my clothes! All the fucking clothes I own are here and you threw out, like, half of them!”

“NAME. ONE.”

“What?”

“NAME. ONE,” he said again, this time tapping at his chest. “WHAT. IT. SAID.”

Ana frowned, feeling heat in her cheeks, then lifted her chin and defiantly said, “Stop staring at my tits and touch them.”

“WOULD. YOU. WEAR. THAT. TO. WORK.”

That, she didn’t answer. Of course she wouldn’t.

Freddy was not placated by silence. Scowling, he leaned closer, lighting up his eyes and letting a few notes of the March play behind his growl: “WOULD. YOU.”

“Hey, I wasn’t at work! I was here!”

“YES. YOU. WERE. HERE. YOU. WERE. IN. MY. HOUSE. AND. WHEN. YOU. ARE. IN. MY. HOUSE. YOU. SHOW. ME. SOME. RESPECT.” Again, with the pointing. His angry eyes got angrier. “YOU. SHOW. YOURSELF. SOME. RESPECT.”

Ana clapped both hands to her face hard enough to sting, tore them away and shouted, “Stop pretending you care about me!”

In a flash, Freddy was right up in her face, bellowing, “START. PRETENDING. YOU. CARE. ABOUT. YOURSELF.”

It shut her up as effectively as a slap. She looked at him, the heat of frustration and anger draining away, leaving her cold. Was that what she was doing? Was it? Just pretending? And if that was all it was, why the hell was she trying so hard?

So stop. Just stop. If she didn’t care, for damn sure no one else needed to. Who would it really hurt if she just…stopped?

Over Freddy’s shoulder, a cracked purple face watched her. Bonnie. Staying back, as ordered, but as close as he could come. Waiting for her.

Freddy glanced back, following her gaze. His fan revved once in a sigh. He straightened, stepped back and just looked at her, without anger. “I. PROBABLY. SHOULDN’T. HAVE. SAID. THAT. OR. MAYBE. I. SHOULD. HAVE. SAID. IT. A. LONG. TIME. AGO.”

Ana shook her head and tried to go around him.

He put up his hand to stop her, sighed again, and dropped it. “I. KNOW. YOU’RE. NOT. A. CHILD. BUT. IF. I. TREAT. YOU. LIKE. ONE. SOMETIMES. IT’S. ONLY. BECAUSE.” He cut his eyes away, but couldn’t seem to find any one place to let them rest, and when he came back to her, something in them had changed. “I. CARE. ABOUT. YOU.”

Ana rolled her eyes so savagely, they hurt. “Oh stop it, you do not. The only thing you’ve tried to do since I got here is get rid of me! Admit it, you don’t give a damn what my t-shirts say! There’s worse than that written on the side of the fucking building! No, you just wanted to piss me off enough so I’d leave on my own and spare you the fight with Bonnie when you threw me out!”

His mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t even try to. After a moment, he looked back at Chica.

Chica folded her arms and simply stared back at him. “YOU MADE YOUR BED,” she chirped, too happily for the stern look on her face. “LIE DOWN AND GO TO SLEEP.”

Freddy glanced at Ana, then firmed up his shoulders slightly and faced her. “I. DIDN’T. KNOW. YOU. THEN. I. THOUGHT. IT. WAS. THE. RIGHT. THING. TO. DO. I. MADE. A. MISTAKE. I’M SORRY.”

“Freddy, for real now.” Ana took a deep, calming breath and then shouted, “Fuck _off_ with that sorry _horseshit_! I would rather hear you call me a trampy piece of trespassing trash and mean it than have to listen to you say you’re sorry just because that’s what you think I want to hear!” Again, she tried to push past him, to leave on the last word while she could still talk.

Again, he put up his hand and this time, he actually touched her. There was strength in his grip, although he didn’t use it against her and he soon lifted it entirely away. “YOU’RE. NOT. TRESPASSING. YOU. DID. ONCE. BUT. YOU’RE. FAMILY. NOW.”

“Yeah, right. I remember how that goes. I’m the one you didn’t choose and the one you don’t have to love.” 

“AN-N-A. NO.”

“What was that about anyway? What, was that your consolation speech when you thought I was finally out the fucking door? God, it must have killed you when I came back with good news!”

“NO.” He tapped his chest. “THIS. IS. K-K-KILLING. ME. RIGHT. NOW. BECAUSE. I. KNOW. YOU. BELIEVE. WHAT. YOU’RE. SAYING. AND. I. KNOW. IT’S. BECAUSE. I. MADE. YOU. BELIEVE. IT.”

Whatever savage thing sat in her heart pretending to be triumph shrank back. She looked at him, trying to see a giant toy she was yelling at, because that at least would let her be angry at herself…instead of ashamed. She backed up, then, for the third time, she muscled past him. 

“AN-N-A. PLEASE.” He didn’t stop her, although he did turn to watch her go. “I. WANT. TO. MAKE. THIS. RIGHT. IF. I. CAN’T. SAY. I’M SORRY. THEN. TELL. ME. HOW.”

She threw a laugh at him like a punch and kept going, one step, two, but at the door to the store room, with the loading dock in sight, she stopped. She turned around.

“Show me the basement,” she said.

In the dining room, Bonnie let out some static and began to stutter too hard and fast for her to tell what he was trying to say. At the other end of the kitchen, Chica unfolded her arms so abruptly, she broke off a few feathers and a thumb. Freddy didn’t look at either one of them. He tipped his head back slightly, eyes narrowing, and that was all.

“Show me the basement,” she said again. “I know you have one. Let me see it.”

“WHY?” 

She’d been expecting a ‘no’. She knew what to say to that, how to twist it around, blow it up into a bigger fight. Caught out by this unanticipated question, all she could manage was a weak, “I want to see it.”

“WHY?”

“Because I want to! Because…” Her throat tightened. She gripped at it without thinking, like she could push her mother’s punishing hand away fifteen years after her death, and hoarsely spat, “Because for once in my goddamn life, I need to know what I’m building all this on, if it’s rock or if it’s…just another big, black pit! I need to see it, Freddy!” His name broke in her mouth. She coughed, fighting in another breath, and turned away. 

She’d had a lot of stupid arguments in her life, but this one really took the cupcake. She thought of her mother—her unavoidable, inexplicable rages—accepting without emotion that, despite all her whispered vows in the dark of the closet, she had grown up just like her. Or maybe not. At least her mother’s anger had always been directed against people. The voice on the phone, faces on TV, the cops who were forever ‘harassing’ her, even her own daughter, but people all the same.

‘I am really and truly fucked up, aren’t I?’ Ana thought stoically, still staring at the wall. ‘I can only kiss bunnies and I can only yell at teddy bears.’

“ALL RIGHT,” said Freddy.

She glanced at him, wiped her eyes and made sure they were dry—they were—and pushed herself off the counter. “Forget it,” she said and headed for the door.

Freddy stopped her with one hand and pointed the other at Bonnie, glitching out like mad in the dining room. “GO. BACK. TO. THE. STAGE. THAT’S AN ORDER. IT’S ALL RIGHT. EVERY. THING. IS. ALL. RIGHT. JUST. GO.” He looked back at Ana and lowered his arm so that he offered his hand. “GIVE. ME. YOUR. HAND.”

And now she didn’t want to go. Funny how that worked.

“Why?” she stalled.

“IT’S. DARK.”

‘And full of terrors,’ Ana thought and had to suppress a shudder, cursing Rider for his Game of Thrones addiction.

She took his hand. He closed his—huge, hard, unfeeling—around her much smaller one, then turned and wordlessly led her away.


	19. Chapter 19

# CHAPTER NINETEEN

Out of the kitchen, down the hall, past the dogleg corridor that led to the locked manager’s office, Freddy led her through the building, and only when he opened the door to Pirate Cove did Ana get the first faint inkling of where he was taking her.

If Foxy was on stage, he said nothing. He must be used to hearing Freddy pass through. And that was fine. Once distracted, Freddy might ‘forget’ he’d ever agreed to take her to the basement and Ana wasn’t sure she had it in her to ask again. So she kept quiet, matching her footsteps to Freddy’s as she followed him into the Treasure Cave. 

Ana had a decent sense of direction and as Foxy had observed earlier, there was only one way through the maze. She’d mapped the place out on her roombuilder before, and although she hadn’t exactly memorized the layout, she knew there were no secrets. Take away all these modular panels and it was just four long walls at right angles, no nooks, no crannies. Even the hidden Grotto wasn’t hidden all that well.

“HERE,” said Freddy, moving her ahead of him at a crossways and into a snaking corridor that narrowed at every bend until he was scraping the foam off the walls on both sides.

“This turns into a dead-end,” said Ana.

“I. KNOW. KEEP. GOING.”

“Go where?” she asked, her voice level but her heart beginning to pound. “It doesn’t go anywhere. It just quits.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and gently pushed. “KEEP. GOING.”

She walked, winding back and forth and around until the corridor ended. The fake rock surface had been flattened in a rough square and a suitably creepy skull shape carved into it to laugh at her failure to find her way through the painfully uncomplicated kiddie maze. Looking into its dusty eyes, Ana asked, “Now what?”

“MOVE. THE. WALL.”

“This isn’t a moveable panel,” said Ana, indicating the left-hand edge. “Look. There’s no lockplate. It doesn’t come off.”

“YES. IT. DOES.”

Dropping to one knee, she felt along the edges of the panel for the connecting clasp she could already see wasn’t there, then did it again, exploring every inch from the floor to the ceiling on both sides. Nothing. She pushed anyway, to no effect. The foam walls of the maze were all modular panels, but this one was flush up to the perimeter wall. It wouldn’t slide left or right, wouldn’t so much as wiggle. 

“I don’t understand,” she said, keeping her eyes on her hands and pretending that itch between her shoulder-blades was just a trickle of sweat and not the anticipation of a huge fist crushing her spine in one punch. “It doesn’t move.”

Freddy reached over her shoulder and poked two fingers into the socket-eyes of the carved skull. Not far, not even up to the first knuckle, but further than the sockets were deep.

Freddy withdrew his arm. “YOU. HAVE. TO. DO. IT,” he said. “I. CAN’T. FEEL. I. MIGHT. BREAK. IT.”

Stunned, Ana looked more closely at the skull’s shallow sockets and saw only painted foam. But it didn’t feel like foam when she touched it. Plastic. Hard, textured. When she put a little force behind it, the sockets moved, depressing like the buttons they were. She pushed her thumbs into the skull’s eyes, all the way in.

They clicked, first one and then, with effort, the other.

“PUSH,” said Freddy.

She did, first with her arms, then setting her shoulder against the foam, heaving to very little progress until Freddy reached over her again and added his strength to hers. Disused mechanisms groaned, scraped, and finally began to move. The door rolled back into the wall with excruciating slowness, revealing the layers of the wall—foam, sheetrock, wooden stud, insulation, vinyl membrane, and at last, a thin concrete slip painted over rough rock. When the door cleared that, the guide-arms locked, fully extended. The room beyond was black and still. The air that blew out of it was cool, stinking of minerals and maybe old, dried death.

Ana breathed it in and when the taste had no more power over her, she set her shoulder against the door and heaved it to one side.

And there they were, three springtrap suits, side by side by side, silvered by dust, seeming to be connected somehow…were they holding hands? Wait, where were their heads? And their legs? Where was Aunt Easter?

“What the hell am I looking at?” Ana asked, stepping forward and to one side so that the light of Freddy’s eyes would stop throwing her shadow over everything and more fully illuminate the room beyond.

Just a room. Poured concrete floor with a narrow drain that showed red staining around the mouth, not blood and not rust, but only traces of that red desert earth that must have bubbled up from time to time when Mammon’s crazy storms were sufficient to push water all the way up this pipe. The vaguely man-shaped objects she had initially mistaken for springtrap suits were instead a series of pipes, pumps, tanks and other plumbing-related machinery, larger and newer than the ones at Aunt Easter’s house, but still a perfectly ordinary water treatment system for a well. The boxy contraption that squatted next to it was not as easily identifiable, but it had one of those mystery posts sprouting out of its back and up into the ceiling with a bare-bulb fixture plugged directly into it, so it was electrical in nature, whatever else it was.

Apart from this machinery, the room held only those appliances and junk she would expect to find in the basement of Freddy’s—a push-sweeper to keep the maze clean, a few cans of spray-foam and cave-colored paint to cover the inevitable crude graffiti, a box of plastic doubloons and several plastic tubs full of fake kelp and coral. No cages holding the bodies of missing Mammon children. No rotting gold bunny-suit with Erik Metzger’s corpse stuffed inside like a slightly less-appetizing pizza pocket than the one on the menu upstairs. Most importantly, there was no wizened mummy with Aunt Easter’s blonde hair slumped beneath a scratch-mark calendar dotted with her own broken fingernails. It was just a room.

…with a poured concrete floor.

Ana scraped her boot across it thoughtfully, looked around and ultimately up. The ceiling was low and perfectly featureless. No pipes, no beams, no wiring…no ventilation shafts. 

“Where’s the rest of it?” she asked.

“THIS. IS. ALL. THERE. IS.”

“Sure, okay. Lie to me. I’ll find it myself.” Ana went to the corner where the storage tubs were stacked and began to move them.

She found a door, but not the one she was expecting.

Identical to the door to Kiddie Cove, it was metal with a wheel hatch in the center, like something on a submarine or a space station. 

“Is this what I think it is?” Ana asked, mentally retracing her steps through the maze and comparing it to what she could remember of the map her roombuilder had helped her lay out. “Is that…Is that the Mermaid’s Grotto?”

“THIS AREA IS RESTRICTED TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY,” Freddy replied, but she didn’t need him to confirm anything. Hell, she knew where she was. Back wall, off-center, almost directly below the wrecked ship at the rear of Pirate Cove. And that meant she knew what was on the other side of this door.

Ana put both hands on the wheel and tried to turn it. It didn’t budge and probably wouldn’t even if she’d had all night to try, but Freddy came at once to take her arm and pull her bodily away from the door. 

“I. SAID. NO,” he told her, not angrily, but not gently either. 

“But it is, isn’t it? The Mermaid’s Grotto?”

Freddy looked at the door, frowning, and back at her. “YES.”

“Then what’s the big deal? You’re not keeping the Lost Fazbear Gold in there, open it!”

“THIS DOOR IS TO REMAIN LOCKED AT ALL TIMES. THE RULES ARE FOR YOUR SAFETY. PLEASE. THERE’S. NOTHING. IN. THERE. LET’S. JUST. GO. BACK. UPSTAIRS.”

Shaking him off, Ana went around him and back out into the maze, scanning the left-hand wall until she found where the interlocking panels connected. She took them apart, heaved them aside, and started looking for the next one.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Freddy asked, following her. “AN-N-A. PLEASE.”

There. A not-so-secret handle that opened a sort of obvious concealed door. Ana opened it and walked into the tiny cave-like chamber beyond.

The Mermaid’s Grotto. There were her footprints in the thin film of dust on the floor, and Bonnie’s big bunny-prints, too. There was her name written on the dirty glass (she’d laughed when she found that on her mapping excursion, but left it alone; someday, she’d have to bring Bonnie back down here so she could ‘discover’ it with him), and on the other side, the Mermaid slumped behind a limp bed of plastic seaweed, awaiting another turn of the crank. Freddy’s eyelight, diffused through the glass wall ahead of her, cast an eerie almost greenish light across the web-filled interior, but it was enough to just glimpse a faint rectangular outline on the back wall. There was no latch or doorknob, but she knew what she was looking at.

“That’s the door to the other room,” murmured Ana, cupping her hands around her eyes right up to the glass to see it better. “The one we were just in. But I don’t…see…Freddy, I need your eyes.”

He came a little closer, making shadows leap and dance as his gaze moved from point to point around the Grotto. “WHAT. ARE. YOU. LOOKING. AT.”

“The floor.”

He looked down, casting a fuzzy spotlight over layers and layers of webbing, so much that it might as well be snow. The floor of the interior Grotto might be concrete, like in the utilities room, or it might be high-traffic carpet, as it was on this side of the glass and elsewhere in the maze, or it might be molded foam like the walls and ceiling. Hell, it could be anything…but in this case, no answer was all the answer Ana needed.

She stepped back, frustrated but not defeated. “Where’s the rest of the basement?”

“THIS. IS. ALL. THERE. IS. AN-N-A,” he said, reaching out his empty hand like he was trying to pull her out of the ocean and not standing right next to her in an extremely small space. “I’VE. GONE. AS. FAR. AS. I. CAN. GO. PLEASE. BELIEVE. ME.”

She pointed at him. “Stop right there, bear. Before you lie to me again, you should know that I dropped a glowstick down a pipeshaft when I was up in the ceiling maze—”

Freddy turned around and clapped both hands over his eyes. Without their glow, darkness dropped like a curtain after the show. 

“Yeah, and I saw it hit the floor! A concrete floor,” she emphasized, stomping her boot. “But if you go back to that room and look up, you’ll notice there is no fucking pipeshaft, and if you look down, you’ll notice there’s no glowstick either. So how about you _stop lying,_ ” she said in a sudden cracked shout, “and show me the real goddamn basement!”

Freddy did not answer. He hardly seemed to be in the same room with her. He kept his back to her, his head shaking now and then in some internal dialogue where his only answer seemed to be no.

“I’ll find it with or without your help,” said Ana, watching him. “I’ll take every piece of this maze apart until I find that door. If it’s locked, I’ll break it down and if I can’t do that, I will go get my torch and cut through it. I have been putting buildings up for a long time, Freddy, and believe you me, I can take this one down. I’ll take it apart brick by fucking brick if I have to.”

Slowly, Freddy’s arms lowered. His head turned, but not enough to look at her. Staring at her name on the glass of the Grotto, he said, “BONNIE. IS. WAITING. FOR. YOU.”

“Don’t you dare use him against me. I am not leaving until I find either that fucking glowstick or the real basement door. What are you going to do, bear?” 

He stood a long time without answering, just staring at her. His fan revved and revved, filling the space between them with sounds of strain, but face showed no expression. At last, he turned away. “I’LL. OPEN. THE. DOOR. YOU. CAN. LOOK. FOR. YOUR. TOY.”

Ana heaved a curt sigh. “It’s not in there, Freddy. The floor isn’t remotely the same.”

“YOU. HAVE. TO. AT. LEAST. LOOK,” Freddy said, limping back through the direct route she’d carved through the maze to the utilities room. His bad leg dragged more than she remembered. “BEFORE. YOU. TELL. ME. I. HAVE. NO. CHOICE.”

“Fine.” Ana followed him, following mostly the echoes of his footsteps and his fan, and then the snap-shriek of a long-unused wheel-hatch turning. As she assembled a hand-broom of sorts from various kinds of fake seaweed so she had something to brush the cobwebs aside, Ana said, “If I find that glowstick here, I swear you’ll never hear the word ‘basement’ out of me again, but if I don’t, I’m going to keep looking for it. You understand what that means?”

“YES. I. KNOW. WHAT. IT. MEANS.” Freddy pulled the narrow door fully open and stood aside, one hand still on the wheel. 

“This is pointless,” Ana grumbled, clearing the doorway of webs and shaking off the first startled spiders. “Do you see a concrete floor here, bear?”

“I. WAS. DIFFERENT. ONCE.”

She looked up at him, one foot on the threshold. “What?”

“I. UNDERSTAND. WHY. YOU. DON’T. LIKE. ME. VERY. MUCH.” His expression did not change, but his ears shifted slightly back and down. “MOST. DAYS. KNEE. THERE. DO. I. BUT. I. WAS. DIFFERENT. ONCE. WILL. YOU. TRY. TO. REMEMBER. THAT.”

She didn’t know what to say, but he was looking at her and his eyes—plastic and glass, servos and springs—were too hard to meet. She nodded.

“I. TRIED. TO. MAKE. THIS. WORK,” said Freddy. “NOT. AS. SOON. AS. I. COULD. HAVE. AND. NOT. AS. HARD. AS. I. SHOULD. HAVE. BUT. I. TRIED. REMEMBER. THAT. TOO. AND. TELL. BONNIE. WHEN. YOU. SEE. HIM.”

Something about that—the words themselves or the patchwork way he said them or even just the dull-eyed look on his face—put an apprehensive tickle up her spine. She told herself it was the spiders, some of which were even now creeping out the open door and across her boot, but even in her head, she wasn’t convincing. 

The thought came to her that, like the freezer and Kiddie Cove, there was no way to open the Grotto’s door if it should happen to close and that wheel-hatch accidentally spin. Not that she had to worry about Freddy locking her in here…but all the same, she’d better look around and get out.

Uneasy, she moved deeper into the room, sweeping up cobwebs and winding them around her makeshift broom in sheets. The floor she revealed was covered in some kind of rubbery mat, similar to the stuff that had padded the interior of the ductwork maze, painted and textured to look like sand, which made the spiders scattering across it look a bit like crabs. One of them ran up her arm. She crushed it under her thumb and flicked it to the floor. “Can you come…oh.”

He had moved in the short time her back had been turned so that he was no longer to one side of the door but in the doorway itself, where he could no longer close it on her, but where he just as effectively blocked her in.

“In,” she finished unnecessarily as he took a rather long step toward her, squeezing his huge body through the narrow opening with almost magical ease. “I need your eyes to see.”

He did not aim them at the floor, but took another step, looking at her and only at her. 

Ana backed up and promptly bumped her head on a low-hanging stalactite. Several living spiders, a dozen dead ones and a hundred imaginary ones rained down over her. She slapped them away, stumbling blindly deeper into the room as Freddy reached out to keep her from falling, and then the heel of her boot came down on something long and round with a sound that was half crack and half crunch.

All other thought went white and still. 

Ana looked down. She lifted her boot and held it there, stupidly raised, staring until Freddy looked down too.

With the help of his glowing eyes, she could see it even better: a small plastic object about the size and shape of a cigar, pale, translucent, taking on some of the greyish color of the dust on which it lay, but still plainly recognizable as a glowstick. Lightless now. She guessed that made it just a stick. A broken stick, now that she’d stepped on it.

A spider ran across her face, breaking the moment. She slapped it hard enough to make her eyes water, then looked up as she wiped spider guts from her cheek. In the ceiling, tucked behind a stalactite where she’d never be able to see it from the other side of the glass, was a dark circular shape, barely perceptible even now. There were no webs immediately around it, or maybe there had been and they’d just been torn away. Like by something falling through them.

“IS. THAT. IT,” Freddy asked, looking just as uncertain and surprised as she.

“It can’t be,” said Ana, but bent and picked it up. Whatever slime filled the tube dribbled out through the cracks, but just because it was still wet didn’t necessarily mean it was fresh. She wasn’t exactly an authority in the field of glowsticks, so for all she knew, the stuff would stay liquid forever unless it was broken open by someone like her. On the other hand, inexpert as she was, it sure looked like the kind she used, right up to the clip on the side, specifically, the _broken_ clip.

It was the same glowstick.

It couldn’t be. She’d seen the floor through the dropshaft in the ducts, a concrete floor. Poured concrete, grey and mottled, smooth.

Like layered sheets of spiderwebs…?

No, it was concrete! And she’d been clear on the other end of the building…hadn’t she? She’d had to crawl forever to get to the party room, which was, come on, just two rooms down from Pirate Cove!

But the design of the ductwork maze did not allow for travel in straight lines. She might have indeed crawled the length of the building and back; that had no bearing on her starting point.

Besides, here was the glowstick. Obviously, neither the door to the Grotto nor to the utility room had been opened in years. Unless someone had, by pure coincidence, dropped a glowstick in here during the few days the restaurant was in operation, this was hers and that was the pipe it had come down through.

She tossed it away, listening in confusion to the weak _paf_ as it landed, so different from the crisp tap and rattle she remembered. But memory…memory lied, so much more than people thought.

The Mermaid slouched in the plastic weeds, its glass eyes dull with dust, unfocused. Metal bones showed where its once-iridescent vinyl skin had opened. Rotted padding hung like corpse-flesh. Spiders crawled through its pale hair and laid their eggs in the cavity of its body. But it was just the Mermaid—as Bonnie had said, not even an animatronic, only a wind-up toy—and not her Aunt Easter.

“There’s nothing here,” said Ana. Despair welled up where relief should be. She turned, slapping blindly at spiders and tears, and bulled past Freddy back into the utilities room. She would have run from there, from the Treasure Cave and maybe even the whole building, but she tripped on all the nothing that had been buried in this corpseless basement and fell against the blocky machine of unknown function situated beside the pump. Huddled against its cold, unfeeling body, she cried in breathless shuddery silence. 

The Grotto door shut with a moan and a bang. Freddy turned the wheel-hatch until its internal gears ground and then turned it some more, ensuring she’d never be able to open it again without mechanical aide. After that, he just stood and faced the door, not speaking or moving until long after she’d emptied herself of useless tears. Then and only then did he say, “I’M. SORRY. I. TOOK. YOUR. THINGS.”

Ana roused herself from a dull-eyed, thought-free stare and dragged a hand across her face. “So not about that anymore, bear.”

“WHAT. IS. IT. ABOUT.”

“Nothing to do with you.” The threat of another crying spree surged, but she was out of fuel and when it washed out, she was left with a deep calm. She had seen things, too many to fully disbelieve Mike Schmidt’s story, but there were too many other pieces that just wouldn’t fit in the holes he’d carved out, no matter how hard she hammered at them. Whatever Faust had built this place to be, whatever Metzger had made of the other pizzerias, this one was just…Freddy’s. 

“It’s nothing to do with you,” she said again and heaved herself to her feet. “Sorry I keep calling you bear. I don’t think I’m doing it on purpose. Not all the time, anyway. It’s just that…Freddy feels so…”

“FRIENDLY,” said Freddy and grunted. He took his hat off and rubbed at his forehead. “I. HAVEN’T. BEEN. VERY. FRIENDLY. AND. I’M. SORRY. ABOUT. THAT. TOO.”

“It’s not your fault. You are what I made you. Me and all my fucking emotional baggage,” she sighed, leaning up against the wall where she could play with a valve wheel on the well-pump. “Making you pay for something someone else did more than twenty years ago.”

“WHAT. HAPPENED.”

“Nothing,” she said automatically, then laughed. “I got hit by a car. Me and cars, Freddy. I got hit by one. I got taken away in one. I almost drowned in one. Same car every time. But I can’t go around being angry at every Honda Civic I see, because that would be crazy, and I can’t be angry at the driver, because she’s already dead, so instead, I take out my repressed hostility on you, because that’s the mature and responsible thing to do. See how much sense that makes?”

He grunted. 

“Any chance we could start over?” Ana asked without much hope.

“START. OVER.” Freddy let out a sound that was equal parts grumble, groan and bearish laugh, and said, “AN-N-A. I. JUST. DON’T. THINK. I. CAN. GO. THROUGH. ALL. THAT. AGAIN.” He put his hat on and stretched out his arm to give her an awkward sort of pat on the shoulder. “BUT. I’LL. TRY. TO. DO. BETTER. FROM. NOW. ON.”

“Me, too. I’ve…I’ve been kind of fucked up lately. Something…happened…and I’m not dealing with it very well.”

“DO. YOU. WANT. TO. TALK—”

“No.”

Freddy nodded, but his eyes remained troubled, searching. “YOU. DON’T. HAVE. TO. TALK. TO. ME. BUT. YOU. SHOULD. TALK. TO. SOMEONE.”

“Like who?”

Freddy clicked through a number of options on his list of trusted adults a child could turn to for help and came up with, predictably, “THE. POLICE.”

“Oh Jesus. Freddy, I know you mean well, but the cops in this town are spectacularly disinterested in solving any crimes connected with my family. I’m not even sure they’d consider it a crime,” she muttered, thinking that if she had found her aunt’s mummy tucked away in the corner behind the water heater, the coroner would have shown up with the suicide report already filled out and Ana would be arrested for breaking and entering, assuming a vigilante mob led by Wendy Rutter didn’t brick her and her aunt’s bones back up in the basement.

“WHAT. ABOUT. YOUR. FRIENDS,” Freddy asked, rousing her from that vivid little fantasy.

“Who, Rider?” Laughter scraped out of her. She rubbed her eyes some more. “God, I can’t even imagine what he’d tell me, but it would probably start with, ‘That’s what you get for going off in the first place,’ and end with, ‘Now get your dumb ass back home.’”

Freddy’s ears lowered slightly on their pins. “AN-N-A,” he began, then looked away, servos whining through a hundred small, fidgety movements before he braced himself and looked at her again. “AN-N-A. DON’T. YOU. HAVE. ANYONE.”

Another time, that might have hurt, but she’d cried all the tears she had and there was nothing left inside her that could feel much of anything anymore. She said, “Freddy, if I did, would I be here?”

They looked at each other. Faintly, more like a memory than a sound, Ana heard Foxy singing in the Cove above them, the Ballad of the Flying Fox. And that meant he’d probably heard her shouting the place up. She hadn’t realized sound would carry so well in this place.

“BONNIE. IS. PROBABLY. WORRIED. ABOUT. YOU,” Freddy said at last. “ARE. YOU. READY. TO. GO.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Still got a lot of work to do today. Freddy?”

He stopped, caught in an awkward hunch as he attempted to squeeze himself through the narrow secret door, and looked back at her. “YES?”

“Why did this place close?”

He looked at her for a long time, nothing moving but the fur around his joints as his cooling system cycled air through him. Then he let go of the jamb and pulled himself back into the utilities room with her. “NO. ONE. EVER. TOLD. US. SO. ALL. I. CAN. TELL. YOU. IS. WHAT. I. SAW. IS. THAT. ENOUGH.”

Ana nodded, waiting.

“WE. OPENED. ON. A. MONDAY. IT. WAS. THE. PLAN. TO. HAVE. GIVEAWAYS. EVERY. DAY. AND. EVERY. WEEK. NAMES. WOULD. BE. DRAWN. FOR. SMALL. PRIZES. LEADING. UP. TO. A. SPECIAL. GRAND. PRIZE. AT. THE. END. OF. THE. MONTH.” Freddy paused, his eyes dimming slightly as his lenses opened wider and slowly shrank small again. “BUT. ON. THAT. FIRST. NIGHT. A. GROUP. OF. KIDS. BROKE. IN. AFTER. HOURS.”

“What happened to them?”

“THEY. DREW. PICTURES. THEY. BROKE. THINGS. THEY. DRANK. THEY. SMOKED. THEY. GOT. WILD.” Again Freddy grew quiet, not clicking through soundfiles, but only looking at her. At last, he said, “I. WAS. NOT. PROGRAMMED. TO. UNDERSTAND. HOW. THIS. WAS. BAD. ALL. I. KNEW. WAS. THAT. THEY. WERE. HAVING. FUN.” Another pause. His ears twitched, not in a glitchy way, just thinking. “ONE. OF. THEM. TRIED. TO. JUMP. ONTO. THE. CAROUSEL. FROM. THE. ROCK CLIMBING WALL. IN THE GYM.” Pause. “HE. ALMOST. MADE. IT.” 

“Oh,” said Ana. It was all she could think of to say. Nothing like this had been in Mike Schmidt’s binder. “How…How bad was he…?”

“HIS. HEAD. WAS. BROKEN. OPEN.”

“Oh.”

“THE. OTHERS. GOT. SCARED. AND. LEFT. HIM,” said Freddy. “I. DIDN’T. KNOW. HE. WAS. HURT. I. REAL. EYES. HOW. THAT. MUST. SOUND. TO. YOU. NOW. BUT. BACK. THEN. I. WAS. NEW. IT. WAS. ALL. NEW.” He touched one of the wider cracks in his own head. “WE. BREAK. WE. DON’T. GET. HURT. IF. HE. HAD. BEEN. CRYING. MAYBE…BUT. HE. WAS. QUIET. I. DIDN’T. EVEN. THINK. OF. IT. AS. SLEEP. I. THOUGHT. HE. HAD. SHUT. DOWN.”

“What did you do?”

“WHAT. I. KNEW. TO. DO.” Freddy gestured toward the interior of the building. “I. PUT. HIM. IN. THE. PARTS. ROOM.”

“You didn’t…You didn’t try to fix him, did you?”

“NO. BUT. WHAT. I. DID. WAS. BAD. ENOUGH.”

“What did you do?”

“NOTHING,” said Freddy simply.

“Did he die?”

“YES.”

Ana started to nod, then frowned. “Wait, you said this was the first night? And then, what? They’d already ordered the cake, so they just kept partying?”

Freddy shook his head slowly, holding her gaze. “WE. WEREN’T. SCHEDULED. FOR. MAINTENANCE. UNTIL. THE. WEEKEND. NO. ONE. HAD. ANY. REASON. TO. GO. INTO. THE. PARTS. ROOM. ACCESS IS RESTRICTED.”

“No one knew he was there.” And as bad as that was, a worse thought occurred almost immediately. “How long…When they found him, how long had he been dead?”

“TWO. DAYS.”

“Oh God, Freddy.”

“I. DIDN’T. KNOW.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said mechanically, but she wasn’t sure how effective her assurance was when even she could hear the appalled tone in her voice and feel it stamped across her staring face. Had he ever regained consciousness? She almost hoped not. It was so much worse to picture him calling for help and banging weakly on those vault-like metal walls, what little sound he made utterly eclipsed by the cacophony of shrieking kids, singing animatronics, and the clatter of any busy restaurant. 

“THEY. CLOSED. AND. THEY. MIGHT. HAVE. OPENED. AGAIN. AFTER. A. WHILE. BUT. THEN. ALL. THAT. FREDDY. LIVES. NONSENSE. STARTED. UP. AGAIN. KIDS. DRAWING. PICTURES. ON. THE. WALLS. AND. TRYING. TO. BREAK. IN. EVERY. NIGHT.” He showed her his empty hands in a gesture of frustration. “THE. NEXT. THING. I. KNEW. THE. WINDOWS. WERE. DARK. THE. DOORS. WERE. LOCKED. AND. WE. WERE. ALONE. NO. ONE. EVER. CAME. BACK. FOR. US. NOT. EVEN. TO. TURN. US. OFF. THAT’S. IT. AN-N-A,” he said, dropping his arms. “A. BOY. D-D-DIED. I. HELPED. IT. HAPPEN. DOES. THAT. MAKE. ME. A. MONSTER.”

“No.” She took a breath and let it out slow, then offered him a small, heartfelt smile. “No, it doesn’t. I know that was hard for you to talk about and I won’t ask again. Thanks for telling me.”

He grunted, looking away at the far wall with hard eyes and too many dark thoughts behind them.

“Thanks for trusting me,” Ana said.

Freddy closed his eyes. He breathed. He opened them and looked at her. “WE’RE. NOT. GOING. TO. HUG. ARE. WE.”

“No.”

“THEN. LET’S. GO.” He sighed, looking up through the ceiling as he waved Ana on ahead of him. “BEFORE. BONNIE. DECIDES. YOU’RE. NEVER. COMING. BACK.”


	20. Chapter 20

# CHAPTER TWENTY

Once the fireworks inside the restaurant fizzled out, there was nothing to distract Foxy from making plans for Ana’s impending visit, when she’d come to settle on the prize for their duel. Not that they needed to be terribly detailed plans. He knew what she wanted—access to the parts room—and he had no intention of giving it to her, so it was just a matter of how to wiggle off her hook. 

Foxy was made to be a pirate and over the years, he had found that the pirate attitude had a lot of useful applications in his day to day life. For example, a proper pirate never left his cabin without a cutlass on his hip and he didn’t just draw it for a serious fight. Roar through town with your blades out at every opportunity was the pirate way. Can’t catch the waiter’s eye to pay your check? Wave a cutlass. Forgot your keys and the missus locked the door? Open it with your cutlass. Can’t decide whose turn it is to carve the turkey at Thanksgiving? The honor goes to the bloke who brought the cutlass. 

In short, the more the enemy saw you as a cutlass-waving brute, the less effectively she was able to defend against the hidden dagger, which in this case was Foxy’s rarely-wielded yet finely-honed power of persuasion. Another duel, one fought with words instead of swords. And if that didn’t work, he’d bring out the swords again. That had been fun.

So Foxy played out his last hours, telling all his old stories and singing all his old songs, while mentally rehearsing quite a different role. At long last, the more conventional fireworks started going off outside, the usual harbinger of the end of Ana’s work-day. This time, she kept going, using up every ray of sunlight while she had it, although she cut back on the hammering. 

Restless as he was, Foxy found himself wondering what she looked like up there…sunlight all glowing red and gold in her dark hair…sweat making her skin shiny and her clothes sticky-tight…

It didn’t make the time go by any faster, but it passed a damn sight pleasanter.

The sun went down. The restaurant closed. Foxy stood in the bow of his ship for fifty-eight minutes more and listened to boots thumping back and forth on the roof. At ten, Foxy’s joints unlocked, but Ana, bless her steadfast little heart, kept working, so Foxy settled himself in the bow of his ship to wait.

The silence snuck up on him. It occurred to him only after he’d heard it, or hadn’t heard it, for a while that Ana might be done working at last. Foxy sat up at once, only to settle reluctantly back again. Wouldn’t do to have her walk in and find him listening for her at the door. Disinterest could be a potent lure. He’d learned that watching the Purple Man, but that didn’t make it less true.

And before much longer, the door to the East Hall creaked open.

Foxy rotated an ear in that direction, but didn’t hear Freddy’s footsteps. “WHO GOES THERE?” he called, smiling because he already knew.

“It’s me,” said Ana.

“Expected ye sooner.”

“Oh, am I keeping you up past your bedtime, Captain?”

“Might b-b-be I’m keeping ye up past yers.”

“Let me worry about that. We had a deal, you and me. You owe me some answers. But we need to make it quick,” she said, pulling the curtain open and climbing onto the stage. “Bonnie thinks I’m in the shower. Where are you?”

“On d-d-deck. Come aboard.”

She didn’t move, not right away, but after a moment or two, he heard her mutter, “Better than his cabin,” and then he heard her on the gangplank. Not the thump of her boots, though; the pad-pad-pad of little bare feet. She’d had the shower first, he thought, and turned his head just as she stepped onto the deck, her wet hair hanging loose all down her back and past her hips, wearing a shirt with a bat clutching a bottle of rum on it and some underbritches cut high on the thigh and not a blessed thing more.

“My eyes are up here, Captain,” she said dryly.

“Hold-d-d the rigging, luv, I’m getting there.”

She laughed and sat, putting her back to the door of his cabin and leaving him tucked up in the bow with the whole of the deck between them.

Foxy made a point of eyeing the distance, then heaved himself up, clanked over one deliberate step at a time, and sat down again beside her, close enough to knock his knee against hers when he drew his leg up for an armrest. “Anyone would-d-d think ye didn’t trust me.”

“Shiny hook,” she reminded him and wrapped her fingers around his, giving it a little shake before releasing it. “So.”

“So,” he agreed. He opened his thigh-casing and brought out the beer he’d lifted from her the other night. He dug out the cork he’d used to cap it, took a swig and offered the bottle. 

“Trying to get me drunk?”

“Pirate.”

“Well, if that’s my flat, day-old, warm beer that you stole the other night, I’ll pass.”

“Aye, black—MANE, ME MORTAL ENEMY—business such as ours should-d-d be done over a BOTTLE O’ RUM, but some scurvy dog’s g-g-gone and drunk mine.”

“I’ll pick you up some more,” she said without apology. “I think I’m developing a taste for it.”

“Are ye now?”

“Not a good thing, Captain. I’ve done way too much drinking lately. Hell, I’ve done too much of everything lately and if you tell Freddy I said that, I will deny it with my hand on the Bible. But yeah…this last week or so has really taken it out of me. No wonder I feel like shit.”

“Yer working t-t-too hard.”

“Probably,” she said without concern. “But it’s only for a few more days, so I can just deal with it. And speaking of deals, we had one, you and me. You know. After I whipped your plastic ass in that duel.”

He growled a warning, but he did it through a smile. “What’ll ye have of me, lass?”

“Tell me how to get backstage.”

“Done. Just ask Freddy. Me oath’s fulfilled-d-d. Ye can see yerself out.” He poured a little more beer in him and eyed her legs appreciatively. “Walk-k-k slow.”

“Damn it, Foxy—”

“Ye asked. That’s how.”

“Don’t give me that piratey double-talk. I beat you in a damn duel. Where’s your honor?”

“Honor? Where the hell are ye g-g-getting yer information on pirates? Closest I got to honor b-b-be taking it—” He tickled under her chin with his hook. “—from blushing lasses like ye.”

She snorted and muttered, “So many things wrong with that sentence.”

“But ye did-d-d get me in that duel,” he admitted. “Even if ye did have to cheat-t-t to do it, so I reckon I do owe ye something. What say ye to this: I’ll give ye an honest answer to one quest-t—QUEST FOR THE MERMAID’S CROWN—question, whatsoever it be, p-p-provided ye let me talk at ye a bit first.”

“This sounds suspiciously like a stalling tactic.”

“Them’s me t-t-terms.”

She sighed loudly, tipping her head back to let it softly bang on the cabin door. “All right. Talk.”

She wasn’t in the most receptive mood, clearly, but Foxy had charmed better out of worse. Mentally sheathing his sword and drawing his dagger, he began, “Freddy.”

“Oh God.”

Undaunted, Foxy went on, “I don’t know what yer fight’s about-t-t and I don’t much care. We’re pirates, ye and I. Pirates fight. Page six o’ the hand-b-b-book. But the fact-t-t o’ the matter be, Fred’s in charge here. It’s how it’s alway-way-ways been and all he knows to be- _eeeeeeee_ —shut it,” he snapped, smacking at his speaker. “Getting worse by the bloody d-d-day, that is.”

“Gee, if only there was a place, say a room,” said Ana, not looking at him, “where I could find the parts to fix that. Like a…a ‘parts room.’ What a wild idea.”

“Aye, if only-ly-ly, but there ain’t. Now hush yer loving lips and listen.” Foxy took a moment to regather his thoughts, still rubbing absently at his throat, and said, “Ye know we’re machines, don’t-t- ye?”

Ana’s brows knit slightly. She didn’t answer.

“Don’t ye?” he pressed.

With obvious reluctance, she nodded. Then, rubbing her own throat, she quietly said, “It’s kind of unsettling that you know it.”

“Aye, well, me suspicions were first-t-t aroused when I were born in a workshop-p-p with me head beside me and a man’s arm up to the elbow in me ribcage. Never mind that-t-t. P-P—POINT O’ ME SWORD—is, we’re machines. Ye g-g-got choices, we got subroutines. Ye k-k-ken?”

“Yeah.”

“Nobody’s keeping ye out-t-t o’ that room,” Foxy lied, ‘thumbing’ at the cabin behind them with his hook. “But ACCESS IS RESTRICTED TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY and Fred’s in charge of what-t-t that means. We c-c-can cross swords as many t-t-t—TIME TO SAIL—times as ye like, but I c-c-can’t help ye. And to be p-p-perfectly honest with ye—savor this moment, luv, for lord-d-d knows when it’ll come ‘round again—I only has to _duel_ with them what challenges me. Nothing in me p-p-programming says I has to grant yer wishes. It’s genies ye be thinking of.”

She smiled, but it was a poor effort. Her thoughts turned behind her eyes, clouded and unreadable.

“There ain’t no p-p-parts in there anyhow,” said Foxy, taking another drink. “But it ain’t-t-t clean, it ain’t safe, and it’ll rack-k-k Freddy over right proper if ye should-d-d worry yer way in, so leave it be.”

“I just don’t know if I can do that, Foxy.”

“Why not? Give, g-g-girl.” Gesturing at the cabin behind them with his bottle, he said, “What is it ye really think is b-b-back there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on.”

“No, that’s just it.” She looked at him then, her face pale in the glow of his eyes and her own shining like haunt-lights behind her hair. “I don’t know. I need to see it.”

“I’m t-t-telling ye—”

“Yeah, yeah, everyone tells me, but everyone lies. _I_ need to see it!”

Call him crazy, but he was starting to think this wasn’t just about the parts room.

“I don’t take that personal,” he said, studying her as she went back to staring at the bow of the ship. “I be a proper p-p-pirate and pirates lie.”

“Page two of the handbook.”

“Aye, just so. But I ain’t-t-t the only one here. Ask yer loverbunny-ny-ny. Ask Fred.”

She stuck her tongue out like a toddler, then sighed and rubbed her face.

“Thought ye b-b-buried—TREASURE!—the hatchet.”

“We did. We’re fine. It’s just, you know, he’ll never really like me.” The fire surged in her eye…flickered…and died. She looked away. “None of you _really_ like me,” she said, not entirely to him. “You know, Captain, sometimes…sometimes I really wonder about me.”

“Eh, ye know what-t-t they say, lass. If’n yer worried ye might b-b-be crazy, ye ain’t. The real crazies never quest-t—QUEST FOR NEPTUNE’S CROWN—question it.”

She glanced at him. “You don’t think it’s weird that I talk to you?”

“I were made to be talked at,” he reminded her. “Can’t be that weird-d-d. Probably for the best ye don’t ask me what I think-k-k of ye snoodling on Bon, though.”

“Or swearing at Freddy.”

“I can’t b-bl-blame ye for that one, lass. Many’s the night I whiled away thinking of the things I’d t-t-tell him if I only had the power. We all g-g-gets on each other’s nerves here from t-t-time to—TIME TO SAIL.” He gave her a friendly nudge. “Just means yer p-p-part o’ the family.”

“Good God, not this again.”

He raised an eyebrow; the spring snapped and it dropped back down. “Pretty sure I ain’t-t-t said that before.”

“Freddy did.”

“Hell, girl, ye think-k-k he says that to everyone?”

She shrugged.

Foxy put his hook against her jaw and turned her firmly to face him. “There’s things we has to say-ay-ay when we’re on stage, things we has t-t-to say when certain things are said to us, but that ain’t-t-t one o’ them. I only ever heard him say such to one other in all my d-d-damn life. Don’t ye roll yer fine shoulders at it or I’ll put-t-t a sword in yer hands right now and have at-t-t ye on his honor, and that one I _will_ win.” 

“He doesn’t like me,” she said, not arguing, but stating as clear a fact as the sky was blue or blood was red.

“He likes ye fine. More to the p-p—POINT O’ ME SWORD—point, he trusts ye. Ye think yer the first what ever b-b-broke in here? Ye think he couldn’t-t-t keep ye out if he had a mind to? Aye, I saw that,” he said, pointing at the thought that flickered through her eyes. “Ye think-k-k Fred’s only keeping ye around to put a smile on Bon’s ugly mug? Ha. Fred-d-d don’t give a damn if we’re happy, what matters to him is we’re safe. He’d put ye right-t-t out and let Bon hate him for a hundred years, and if’n we slept, he wouldn’t lose a wink-k-k. Instead, he took ye into his d-d-damn house and just betwixt ye and me and the wide, rolling sea, ye’ve g-g-given him plenty o’ reasons to regret it, but yer still here.”

She didn’t insult him by asking what he meant by that. Neither did she drop her eyes. Her arguments were all the more infuriating for being made in silence.

Foxy lowered his hook and just looked at her for a while. At length, he pretended to turn his attention back to the bottle in his good hand, reading the label like it had something to say. “There’s some folk for whom trust is a word-d-d, no more solid than breath. It means nothing to say it, nothing to hear it said-d-d. Fred ain’t like that.”

“But I am, is that what you’re saying?”

“Ain’t what-t-t I’m saying a’tall. Yer another sort entirely, lass. The kind for whom trust be like rum.” He raised his beer and gave it a gentle shake. “They’ve only so much in the b-b-bottle and once it’s poured out, if it ain’t returned, it’s gone.”

“Is that so?” she said coolly.

“Aye, just so. But Fred? For Fred, trust is like a p-p-p—PIECES OF EIGHT!—piece of his own self. He don’t breathe it out nor p-p-pour it out, he carves it out. It hurts every time and it always leaves a hole.”

“Him telling me where and where not to go doesn’t really feel like trust.”

“Ye going wherever ye’ve a mind-d-d to go, whether or not he wants ye there, ain’t no b-b-better.”

She rolled her eyes, but he could tell that one left a mark.

“Well, yer loverbunny’s waiting on ye,” Foxy said announced in his sail-on-little-hearties voice. “And I g-g-got no more to say, so what’ll ye have of me, lass? Let’s hear it.”

He figured he knew what she’d say at that point and he was ready with a lie, but she didn’t ask. In fact, she didn’t say anything at all for quite a while. When she did finally speak, she started with a sigh and a muttered, “Fuck me.”

“Coo.”

“In your dreams, Captain,” she said. “But you win. Forget the parts room. Here’s my question.”

“All ears, luv,” he said, waggling them.

She glanced at the top of his head. “Bonnie does that joke better,” she remarked, then looked him in the eye. “What were you doing in the ceiling maze?”

Ah shit. 

“Eh?” he stalled.

She pointed up, frowning at him in equal parts frustration and confusion. “You left scratches up there everywhere. That was you, wasn’t it? You’re the only one who could fit and I saw the scratches your hook made. It had to be you.”

“Aye,” he said calmly as his mind raced. “It was me.”

“Well, what were you doing up there?”

He should have known this was coming and had a lie ready. Caught unprepared, Foxy said the first thing that came to mind: “Got b-b-bored one night and climbed up for a look-around. Weren’t pathed-d-d for it. Got lost. And got a mite concerned for a few hours there, I d-d-don’t mind admitting to ye. Started to think I’d-d-d still be there come opening hour, and what that would-d-d do to me, I don’t know. But I found me way out and I never went-t-t back.”

“What is it? For real now. Freddy says he doesn’t know, but—”

“He might-t-t not. It never got that far,” said Foxy, all his lie-making wheels burning at full speed. “Only reason I know is b-b-because I were in the room when they were t-t-talking it out.”

“Talking what out? What possible function could that thing serve? It’s not an air duct, it’s not a—”

“It’s a maze.”

“For who?”

“Hell, what were the names?” Foxy scratched his hook over the top of his head, thinking back to the last time he’d seen the Freddyland poster in the employee’s lounge, the one with all the names. The trick to successful lying was to stay as close to the truth as possible. “Cheddar, Monteray-ay-ay, Feta and Brie, I think.” 

She blinked, then squinted. “Who?”

“For the Rat Races. Little t-t-toy models of the animatronics from the race track-k-k in the midway at Freddyland. There was supposed to b-b-be one o’ them special games in the arcade that lets k-k-kids control the rats like slot-cars, and run ‘em through the maze while the kiddies watched on a screen. Well, hell,” he said, knowing this was a risk, “surely ye saw the g-g-game when ye cleaned out the arcade?”

“I…don’t…” She shook her head as if to clear it. “A maze in the _ceiling_?”

“Why not? It was out of the way and the k-k-kiddies couldn’t climb in or throw their soda pop at the t-t-toys, eh? Just a few hatches here and th-th—THERE SHE BLOWS!—there so’s the techies could get in and keep-p-p it all running smooth…but like I says, it never g-g-got that far. Rats still weren’t working right-t-t when the restaurant opened and then, well, the restaurant closed-d-d.”

God, that was terrible. But Ana leaned back and looked at him with her eyes wide and wondering and her mouth a dumbfounded O of perfect understanding. Then she laughed, head thrown back and face upturned to heaven, all but glowing with the kind of happiness that comes only from the darkest places. She laughed a long, long time, and when she was done, she sagged forward and raked her hands through the tangled mess of her hair and said, “Okay.”

“All right?”

“Yup. All is well,” she said, putting an audible pin in each word, still smiling. Gathering her legs under her, she stood and stretched out the day’s troubles. A gentlemen would never steal a peek up her loose shirt as she arched that limber back, but thank God, Foxy was made to be a pirate. “I’m going to bed,” she announced, stepping over him and heading down the gangplank. “See you.”

“FAIR WINDS AND FOLLOWING SEAS, luv,” he said with a wave she didn’t see, leaning out to watch the pleasant jubble of her hind-end until she was gone. He drank off the last of the beer, tossed the empty over the side of the ship into the ball pit and waited, listening until he heard the East Hall door open and close.

And then, not entirely unexpectedly, he heard Freddy say, “THAT. WAS. A. GOOD. ONE.”

“Eh, ye t-t-tell stories for fifty years, ye get good-d-d at guessing which ones they want to hear.” Foxy pushed himself off the deck and went down the gangplank himself, going to the curtain and pulling it aside. “Where are ye?”

Freddy’s eyes came on in the black at the back of the room, bobbing slightly as he walked forward and stopped at the rails of the amphitheater. 

“How long have ye b-b-been there?”

“LONG. ENOUGH.”

Foxy nodded, but said, “Kind o’ wish ye hadn’t-t-t heard some o’ that.”

“SO. DO. I. BUT. THANK. YOU. ANYWAY.” Freddy looked over at the East Hall door. “I. THOUGHT. SHE. WAS. GOING. TO. ASK. YOU. WHY. THE. RESTAURANT. CLOSED. THAT. COULD. HAVE. BEEN. BAD.”

“Why?” Foxy asked, surprised. “I’d have c-c-come up with something.”

“SHE. ALREADY. ASKED. ME.”

Foxy’s jaw dropped and went crooked. He snapped it back into place. “What’d ye tell her?”

“OH,” said Freddy with a careless wave. “YOU. REMEMBER. THAT. BOY. THE. FIRST. YEAR. WHO. BROKE. HIS. HEAD. OPEN. ON. THE. CAROUSEL.”

“Aye,” said Foxy without having to stop and think about it. The boy, along with his two friends, had climbed up the gym wall and into the crawlway. God alone knew what they were looking for, but they found Mangle. The boy Freddy spoke of had been the only one to make it out of the crawlway, either jumping in a blind panic or deliberately choosing a thirty-foot leap into a cluttered playground full of hard angular surfaces over getting caught in Mangle’s snapping jaws. He’d hit the outer edge of the carousel’s canopy face-first, breaking the front of his skull into six pieces. When he’d slid off onto the floor, his face had fallen open like a meat-flower. Foxy had seen a lot of dying, but that one really stuck out. “Ye told her about-t-t that?”

“MORE. OR. LESS,” said Freddy. “IN. MY. STORY. THAT. WAS. OPENING. NIGHT. HE. BROKE. IN. GOT. HI! DID. SOME. DAMAGE. AND. GOT. HURT. I. PUT. HIM. IN. THE. PARTS. ROOM. WHERE. HE. DIED. A. FEW. DAYS. LATER. BECAUSE. NO. ONE. KNEW. HE. WAS. THERE.”

“Coo, Fred,” said Foxy, impressed by the liar as much as the lie. “Ye c-c-come up with that on the spur of the moment-t-t?”

“YES.”

“It’s a good story.” And it was, combining the death of a trespasser with the deliberate act of an animatronic that added some substance to the idea of a Fazbear curse, but cast doubt over the legend of scores of corpses attributed to murderous animatronics, all wrapped up in a plausible reason why the gym had been blocked off and tied with a don’t-do-drugs ribbon. “A d-d-damn good story,” Foxy amplified. “Gold star for ye, mate.” 

“HEY. I’VE. BEEN. TELLING. FAIRY-TALES. FOR. FIFTY. YEARS. TOO. BESIDES. I. THOUGHT. IT. WOULD.” He paused, tapping his chest case absently as he clicked through soundfiles. “REASON. ATE,” he said with a scowl. “WITH. HER. AFTER. SHE’S. BEEN. IN. THE. CRAWLWAY. HERSELF.”

“Aye,” said Foxy, so casually. “When d-d-do ye reckon she managed that?”

“PROBABLY. THE. NIGHT. YOU. FOUND. HER. IN. THE. MAZE.”

Freddy’s manner of clipping words and patching them together made it difficult to tell sometimes, but he didn’t appear to be saying that with any extra irony. And if he knew of Foxy’s own part in Ana’s adventures that night, he’d surely say so. Foxy had, after all, lied right to Freddy’s face and Freddy was not one to let even the palest acts of mutiny go unchallenged.

“So,” he said, eyeing Freddy with carefully concealed caution. “What do ye reckon she was d-d-doing up there?” 

“SHE. WAS. LOOKING. FOR. THE. PLACE. MEANT,” Freddy replied with that same baffling indifference. “THAT’S. WHY. YOU. FOUND. HER. IN. THE. MAZE.”

“Ah, no, mate,” Foxy said at once, laughing just like there wasn’t a cold vise gripping at his insides. “Yer p-p-paranoia’s showing again. She don’t-t-t even know there is a b-basement.” 

“OH. YES. SHE. DOES.”

“I’m sure she were j-j-just looking for a way to get backstage.”

Freddy nodded. “THAT. MIGHT. BE. WHY. SHE. WENT. UP. THERE. BUT. THEN. SHE. DROPPED. SOMETHING.”

“Eh? In the crawlway-way-way?” But even as he said it, he realized that made no sense. There was only one possible connection between the two lines of Freddy’s curiously calm suspicions. “Are ye t-t-telling me she found a dropshaft that g-g-goes all the way-ay-ay to the bloody basement?”

“A. SMALL. ONE.”

“‘A small one?’” Foxy echoed incredulously. “That’s all ye-e- _eeeeeeee_ —shut it, damn ye! All ye got-t-t to say?”

“THAT’S. WHAT. MATTERS. ISN’T. IT,” Freddy replied, maddeningly calm. “SHE. COULDN’T. FIT. THROUGH. IT. OR. I’M. SURE. SHE. WOULD. HAVE. TRIED. AND. IF. SHE. COULDN’T. KNEE. THERE. COULD. ANYONE. ELSE. BESIDES. IT. DIDN’T. GO. TO. THE. PLACE. MEANT. AFTER. ALL. IT. WENT. TO. THE. MERMAID’S GROTTO.”

“Bloody hell, me heart,” muttered Foxy, clutching at his plastic chest. “Ye need-d-d to start at the beginning, mate.”

“THERE’S. NOT. MUCH. ELSE. TO. TELL,” said Freddy, glancing back at the corridor to the West Hall now, restless to get on about his patrol. “SHE. TOLD. ME. TO. TAKE. HER. TO. THE. PLACE. MEANT. I. HAD. TO. SHOW. HER. SOMETHING.”

“So ye took her to the Grotto. And she was happy-py-py with that?”

“I. TOOK. HER. TO. THE. MAINTENANCE ROOM. SHE. WENT. INTO. THE. GROTTO. FROM. THERE. AND. NO. SHE. WASN’T. HAPPY. AT. FIRST. BUT. THEN. SHE. FOUND. HER. TOY.”

“All the way in, eh?” Foxy said, then recoiled as he remembered what was in that room. “Oh sh–SHIVER ME TIMBERS—shit, man! Did she see the c-c-condenser?”

“OF COURSE.”

“What did she do?”

“NOTHING. YET. BUT. I’M. SURE. SHE’LL. GO. BACK. FOR. A. BETTER. LOOK.” Freddy punctuated that with a growl, but followed up with a sigh. “I’M. TRYING. TO. LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE. ONCE. SHE. GETS. THE. POWER. ON. I. CAN. CLEAN. OUT. THE. PARTS. ROOM. AND. SHOW. HER. IT’S. EMPTY. ALTHOUGH. I. DON’T. KNOW. HOW. I’LL. DO. THAT. BETWEEN. THE. KIDS. OUTSIDE. ALL. DAY. AND. AN-N-A. AROUND. ALL. NIGHT.”

“Gets the p-p-power on?”

“OH. PLEASE. YOU. THINK. SHE. WON’T.” Freddy rubbed his muzzle, looking away at nothing and grumbling to himself. “ONCE. SCHOOL. STARTS. THE. KIDS. WILL. BE. GONE. DO. YOU. THINK. SHE’LL. WAIT. THAT. LONG.”

“And yer just-t-t going to show her backstage?”

“IT’S. IMPORTANT. TO. HER.” Freddy raised his arms and dropped them. “I’D. SHOW. HER. RIGHT. NOW. IF. I. COULD. AND. IF. I. WASN’T. SO. SURE. THERE. WAS. A. MESS. BACK. THERE. I. DON’T. THINK. SHE’LL. GIVE. UP. ON. THE. PLACE. MEANT. FOR. GOOD. UNTIL. SHE. SEES. IT. FOR. HERSELF.” 

“What is she looking for?”

“I DON’T KNOW. I. WAS. HOPING. SHE’D. TELL. YOU.”

“But ye d-d-don’t think it’s _him_ ,” Foxy pressed, knowing perfectly well that if Freddy did, Ana would be dead right now.

Freddy said, “I DON’T KNOW.”

“Fred, if ever-r-r—ARR!—there was a t-t-time for plain talking…” Foxy shook his head and said, “I know ye d-d-don’t know. Just tell me what ye think, mate.”

“I. THINK. NO. ONE. GETS. THAT. UPSET. OVER. A.” Again, Freddy was reduced to miming, but Foxy couldn’t make sense of the shape he indicated and Freddy soon abandoned the attempt. “SHE. WASN’T. LOOKING. FOR. THE. TOY. SHE. DROPPED. SHE. WAS. LOOKING. FOR. THE. ROOM. SHE. DROPPED. IT. INTO. AND. JUST. BECAUSE. SHE. FOUND. THE. TOY. DOESN’T. MEAN. SHE’LL. STOP. LOOKING. FOR. THAT. ROOM.”

Foxy could only stare. “Right-t-t,” he said finally. “Ye are being way t-t-too bloody calm about all this. Why?”

Freddy dismissed the question with a grunt and turned away to resume his patrol.

“No, I am d-d-d—DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES—dead serious, Fred. This is it, ain’t-t-t it? This is the worst it gets without letting _him_ out o’ his cage, so what the hell more c-c-could ye possibly be waiting for? Don’t,” he said suddenly, jumping down off the stage and up the amphitheater steps so he could say it right to Freddy’s face. “Don’t d-d-do this to me, mate. If yer going to k-k-kill her, if all yer waiting on is how best-t-t to get her away from Bon or, hell, her to get-t-t the roof on first, then tell me that. I can hear it. I c-c-can even help ye, damn me, but d-d-don’t pat me head and tell me I’ll see her t-t-tomorrow if I won’t. This ain’t softening the blow. This is twisting the fucking knife.”

Freddy silenced him with an upraised hand, then rested that hand briefly on Foxy’s shoulder. “I. GAVE. MY. WORD.” 

“To Bonnie,” said Foxy, telling himself he was not annoyed. He had no claim on the girl, none at all, and surely Bonnie’s lovesick heart deserved the strongest assurances when it came to Ana’s safety. All the same, his ears swiveled and lay flat and there was nothing at all Foxy could do about it.

But Freddy shook his head and said, “TO. GOD.”

Foxy kept a neutral expression with some small difficulty. “Ye what.”

Freddy did not repeat himself.

“Don’t tell me ye b-b-believe that b-b-bilge. Pearly gates in the c-cl-clouds and harp-playing angels? Ye can’t mean it.”

“I. DO.”

“How long has this b-b-been going on?”

“FIFTY. YEARS.” Freddy’s ears shifted on their pins, too slightly to be read. “OFF. AND. ON.”

“Well, this is the first-t-t I’m hearing of it.”

“I. DON’T. LIKE. TO. TALK. ABOUT. IT.” Freddy glanced back toward the mouth of the Treasure Cave. “IT’S. NOT. ALWAYS. A. COMFORT. TO. ME.”

Foxy was not surprised. He’d never seen it comfort anyone, not a single poor fool who’d wasted their last breath on prayer, and he’d seen many. But no bearded bloke had ever popped up to lob a lightning bolt at the Purple Man or untie a single restraint, or even grant a swifter death than the Purple Man intended to measure out. Still, he said nothing, letting his silence do the sniggering for him.

“I KNOW,” said Freddy, hearing it. “BUT. I. BELIEVE. I. HAVE. A. SOUL. AND. THAT. SOUL. WILL. BE. CALLED. UP. ON. TO. STAND. ONE. DAY. TO. ANSWER. FOR. THE. LIVES. I. HAVE. TAKEN.” 

“At least-t-t ye got a prize-winning defense, mate.”

“DO. YOU. THINK. SO.” Freddy shook his head. “I. HAVE. NOT. ONLY. K-K-KILLED. AS. PART. OF. HIS. GAME. BUT. I. COULD. ALWAYS. SAY. I. DID. WHAT. I. HAD. TO. DO. IN. THE. FENCE. OF. MY. FAMILY. OR. TO. PREVENT. THE. RELEASE. OF. A. GREATER. EVIL. THAN. I. AM.” Freddy lifted his chin slightly, unblinking. “I. KNOW. I. AM. NOT. INNOCENT. BUT. I. HAVE. NEVER. BEEN. AFRAID. TO. MEET. MY. GOD.” Now Freddy’s eyes dimmed. “UNTIL. TODAY. WHEN. I. TOLD. HER. EVERYTHING. WAS. ALL. RIGHT. AND. I. TOOK. HER. DOWN. INTO. THE. DARK. AND. THERE. DECIDED. I. HAD. TO. K-K-KILL. HER. THAT. TRUSTING. CHILD.”

“Ye couldn’t do it,” said Foxy and he guessed he could believe that well enough. He knew the feeling.

But Freddy said, “OH. YES. I. COULD. I. NEARLY. DID. MY. HAND. WAS. NEARLY. ON. HER. WHEN. SHE. FOUND. HER. TOY. ON. THE. FLOOR. OF. THE GROTTO. AND. SAVED. US. BOTH.”

Foxy snorted. “So the g-g-girl finds her lost whatsis in the Grotto and ye think it’s a sign from God-d-d. That’s great this go-round, but what about-t-t the next time? Ye said yerself she’ll tinker with them machines. What do ye think that means?”

“IT. MEANS. SHE’LL. FIX. THEM. AND. TURN. THEM. ON.”

“Ye can’t be okay with that.”

“OKAY. NO. BUT. I. AM. AT. PEACE.”

“Peace?” Foxy sputtered. “P-P-P—PIECES OF EIGHT!— _Peace?!_ How can ye be, man? She can’t j-j-just turn the lights and the water on! She’ll g-g-give him his eyes back!”

“I KNOW. AND. HE’LL. SEE. HER. BUT. IT’S. GONE. TOO. FAR. FOXY. I. CAN. ONLY. STOP. HER. NOW. BY. K-K-KILLING. HER. AND. I. WON’T.”

“Fred—”

“BONNIE. CALLS. HER. HIS. LAST. P-P-POSSIBILITY-TY-TY,” Freddy interrupted. “SHE’S. MY. LAST. LINE. I. WON’T. CROSS. IT.”

Foxy nodded, but felt surprisingly little relief. “Well, good on ye, mate, b-b-but how can that possibly-ly-ly end?”

“I DON’T KNOW. BUT. I. BELIEVE. IN. GOD,” Freddy reminded him, turning away from the rail and limping off into the dark. “I. LEAVE. IT. IN. HIS. HANDS.”


	21. Chapter 21

# CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Ana dreamed again of the maze in the ceiling, but it was smaller, close around her and cluttered with animatronic limbs wrapped in moldy clothes and stuffed with rats and wires. The air she fought to breathe was hot and thick, a poison brume. She crawled on her belly, her head bumping the top of the maze with each frantic lunge forward, but gained little ground. The maze had her and it meant to keep her. Her boots found no traction on metal walls made slick with blood. She struggled onward, as all trapped things struggle, without hope of escape. She was not alone up here. The sounds that followed her in the darkness were at times the ticking of a clock and at other times the whine and wheeze of old servos and gears. 

Ana looked back and even though the maze was lightless, she could see it, the thing her aunt had become, the thing she had perhaps always been. That white face, laughing and weeping together, black sockets for eyes, spiders spilling from the trapdoor of its gaping mouth—the Puppet. Long bone-white arms blistered with iridescent scales, straggles of blonde hair and dusty cobwebs hanging before her like a bridal veil—the Mermaid. Then it spoke, although the mouth didn’t move, and in spite of the low scratch of static that came with it, the voice was familiar—Aunt Easter.

“Just a little further, Honeybunny,” this nightmare amalgamation crooned. “You’re almost there.”

Ana scrambled away, slapping and clawing at the bloody walls of the maze in a futile search for a handhold, but the nearest corner wall that might offer some leverage was just out of reach, as it had been since the start of this dream.

“We missed you,” Aunt Easter said and her voice was just the same—light and laughing, young and pretty—while the hand that reached out to clutch at Ana’s ankle was white as bone, torn open to expose her inner framework and stained padding. “We’ve all been waiting for you.”

Ana kicked away and fled, inch by excruciating inch, gasping for breath and choking on the little she found.

“We had a deal,” Aunt Easter called, coaxing, pleading. “We can be a family now!”

“No!” Ana rasped, kicking blindly as she pulled herself away. She hit something. She felt the impact, heard the cry. She kicked again and again and again, until the sound of her aunt’s moans silenced and all she could hear was the wet crunch of meat and bone, and still she kicked, rasping, “No! No! No!”

“That’s my girl,” a purple voice whispered, breathing out of every part of the maze at once.

Ana looked up and suddenly the maze was gone, but she was just as trapped lying on Aunt Easter’s bed in the purple room with Erik Metzger’s arms around her. His glasses caught the sun streaming through the window, filling his eyes with burning light. His shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his bare chest, smooth as sculpted plastic. She could feel his inhuman heat, hear the tick of gears and wheeze of fans. He smiled; there was a second set of metal teeth behind his perfect white ones. “My, my,” he said, pulling her closer. “How you’ve grown.”

But there, thankfully, the dream ended as horror far greater than the mere perception of her senses swelled up in protest and slapped her right the hell out of sleep. 

She came thrashing up from Bonnie’s lap and fell back in a clumsy sprawl, knocking her head against the leg of the table.

“Are you ok-k-kay?” Bonnie asked, not reaching for her, not yet, but with his hands up and ready. 

Ana nodded, still charged with dream-panic, but able to see the real world around her and herself firmly planted in it. Her heart still raced, her head still throbbed with adrenaline, yet this was Bonnie, and seeing him, she understood immediately that his had been the arms around her, his the heat and stink and prisoning squeeze that had transformed the dream into a nightmare.

“Are you sure?” he asked, venturing a touch on the safe territory of her forearm. Just a touch, brushing the backs of his fingers once along her skin. He wouldn’t grab at her, not Bonnie. His voice, his eyes, the tip of his head and the angle of his ears—all demonstrated nothing but concern.

Ana gathered her legs under her, crawling back to him just long enough to drop a reassuring kiss on his muzzle. “That’s the last time I eat beefaroni right before going to bed,” she told him and got up. “I’ve got to go clear my head. Don’t move, okay?”

Bonnie nodded, but braced a hand on the floor. “If you give me a minute, I c-c-can come with you.”

“No, I want to be alone.” Ana ran a hand over the top of his head, restlessly massaging the base of his quivering ears. “But when I come back, I want to come back to you. Okay?”

“Oh. Okay.”

Ana found her phone for light and headed out. She intended to slip out through the door at the end of the West Hall, take a walk around the empty lot, ground herself beneath the stars, but just before she reached Tux, her feet unexpectedly turned her down the corridor to Pirate Cove. 

Her bare feet made no sound on the thin carpet and the light from her phone clearly never made it past the purple curtain. She could hear Foxy humming to himself up there on the deck of the Flying Fox, dum dum diddly-dumming his way through that rapey little lullaby of his. If he knew she was there, he gave no sign.

Ana slipped into the mouth of the Treasure Cave on the upper level and made her way through the fake cavern to the Mermaid’s Grotto. She thought seeing the mermaid behind the thick glass, inanimate, would help unhook the last clinging shreds of the dream, but if anything, it made them stronger. She found herself remembering, or inventing, new details she had already forgotten until she was all but dreaming again, wide awake. In the end, she did not so much leave as sleepwalk out of the hidden room and around the corner. 

She removed a section of the maze’s wall, then another and another, drifting in a more or less straight line from the Grotto to the back wall. The skull carved into the foam concealing the utilities door watched her come, leering right up until she stabbed her fingers into its sockets. When she heard the twin clicks, she set her shoulder against the wall and pushed. It was easier the second time; most things were.

Ana stepped over the threshold, thinking this time, she’d see them—the springtrap suits, her aunt’s body, maybe a cage where the last celebrants of the building’s grand opening still huddled, waiting for rescue.

Nope. Just a basement utilities room. The most evil thing in here was the water in the tank of the heater, which considering it had been sitting stagnant for twelve years, was probably pretty damn evil. And what did she feel, staring around at all this normal nothing? Relief? No. Her dream had not ended just because she was awake and all the horror of discovery was still out there, just waiting for her to walk into the right room.

But not this one. Ana stood, watching the silence and listening to shadows, numb. When the eyes lit up behind her, Ana ‘woke’ with a start and spun around, thrusting her phone forward like a cross at a vampire and illuminating, of course, Freddy’s frowning face.

“I. THOUGHT. I. MIGHT. FIND. YOU. HERE,” he said.

Ana lowered her phone. “Why were you even looking for me?”

His eyebrows shifted in a very slight well-duh expression. “BONNIE. SAID. YOU. WERE. OUT. SIDE. AND. YOU. WEREN’T.”

Ana managed a weak smile. “And you thought I was getting up to shenanigans, huh?”

“NO. I. THOUGHT. YOU. WERE. UPSET.”

“I’m not. I had a bad dream, that’s all.” Ana turned deliberately away from him and looked at the room, seeing what it held this time and not what was missing. “Just trying to shake it off.”

“HERE.” Freddy made a point of looking around, including his own cracked body in his incredulous stare. 

“Yeah, not the most relaxing venue, but the three Ms will always get me through.”

“I’M. ALMOST. AFRAID. TO. ASK. BUT. WHAT. THREE. M.”

Counting them off on her fingers, Ana said, “I could medicate, I could masturbate, or I could look at broken machines. Would you like to pick one for me?”

“WHEN. YOU. PUT. IT. THAT. WAY.” Freddy ducked through the door with a grumble and a scrape of plastic. Brushing crumbs of foam off his arms, he came to stand beside her, his eyes following the light as she aimed her phone around. 

She started with the water system, because she already knew what it was and its examination served as a restful exercise, much like the stretch before an endurance workout. When she had exhausted all it had to tell, her gaze moved on to the real mystery—that boxy contraption occupying the rear wall from which the metal post sprouted. 

Sprouted. That was a good word. All the other posts she’d found thus far were interconnected, one to the other. Although she hadn’t removed all the walls and couldn’t say she’d performed a thorough investigation, this was the first post that represented a terminus point.

No. Not a terminus, a genesis. This was not where the mystery of the hollow posts ended; it was where it began. Only that wasn’t quite right either, was it? It really began on the roof. 

Ana stared, her physical eyes gradually losing focus as her other-vision sharpened and the purely material features of the mechanism before her blurred out, revealing whole new dimensions of purpose and possibility. The restaurant sketched itself invisibly outward from the place where she stood, an unimportant and increasingly awe-struck witness to a truly grand design. 

For a while, the echoes of her breath and his fan bouncing around the small concrete chamber was the only sound. Then Ana said, “Huh,” and like he’d been waiting for it, Freddy folded his arms and bent his head in an attitude of grim resignation. 

“The hell is that about?” she asked, looking at him with half a smile.

He shook his head—Nothing—and indicated the machinery ahead of them with a flick of his restless fingers. “WELL?” 

“Funny you should say that.” Ana pointed at the more mundane array of pipes and tanks set up beside the apparatus whose function she had been mentally exploring. “You’re on a well here. Did you know that?”

“IF. YOU. SAY. SO.” Freddy shrugged. “WATER. COMES. OUT. OF. THE. WALL. WHERE. THE. WALL. GETS. IT. IS. ANYONE’S. GUESS.”

“Right,” she said with a short laugh. “Well, the wall is getting it from one of the many, many underground aquifers hiding beneath all this deceptively dead-looking desert, as opposed to getting it piped in from the city. Which doesn’t mean much to us, until you factor in this bad boy.” Ana gave the boxy machinery from which the metal post sprouted an amiable pat. 

“WHAT IS IT?”

“I don’t know the name for it. I’m not a hundred percent sure there is one. All I can tell you is what it does.”

“ALL RIGHT. WHAT. DOES. IT. DO.”

“It’s hard to explain…” Ana raked her fingers through her hair, seeking and massaging the scar buried there. “I don’t suppose you know who Nikola Tesla is?”

“YES.”

She looked at him, surprised, but he merely looked back at her with his ubiquitous Freddy-face on. “Really? You’re not just saying that?”

“OH. YES.” He raised a hand, gesturing vaguely at the speaker set in his throat. “IT’S. HARD. TO. PROVE. IT. GIVEN. THE. WORDS. I. HAVE. BUT. TRUST. ME. I. KNOW. ALL. ABOUT. HIM.”

“How?”

Now Freddy smiled, his eyes slanting slightly upward in an expression of hopeless yet affectionate exasperation. “THE. MAN. WHO. MADE. US. WAS. A. FAN. AND. LIKE. YOU. HE. LIKED. TO. TALK. TO. HIS. TOYS.”

Ana thought of Fredrich Faust, that small boy in a black-and-white photo hugging his first animatronic bear, and laughed. “Yeah, I can believe that. Well, the thing is, this guy Tesla had a lot of pretty wild ideas, one of which had to do with generating so-called cosmic energy. The crackpot conspirators of the world like to imagine it as some sort of magical antennae that could produce limitless clean power at no cost, but I was sort of a fan of the guy myself when I was younger and I actually read up on his notes. Although he uses some weird words, what he describes as the generator is essentially a solar panel. Nothing miraculous about that.” Ana gave Freddy a pointed glance. “You had one on the roof. Did you know that?”

Freddy shook his head. “I. DON’T. EVEN. KNOW. THE. WORD. WHAT IS IT?”

“A solar panel? It makes electricity out of sunlight.” Seeing that his expression hadn’t changed, Ana laughed a little. “Let me guess. Electricity comes out of the wall. Where the wall gets it is anyone’s guess.”

“MY. LIFE. IS. HERE,” said Freddy, indicating the room, the restaurant, the Edge of Nowhere and the nothing beyond with a short sweep of his arm. “WATER. LIGHT. SODA POP. I. DON’T. KNOW. WHERE. ANYTHING. COMES. FROM.”

“Well, let’s just say that the rest of Mammon gets their electricity from the city power grid, through wires. You remember our little talk about all the wires that aren’t here?”

“YES.”

“Well, long story sort of short, you are off the grid here and I mean super-off the grid, and that’s something that normal solar panels can’t usually do, especially when you’re only talking about one of them, and super-especially when it’s powering a building this size. See, normal solar panels work by using photons to separate the electrons from atoms and then a gadget called an invertor turns all the potential energy into usable electricity. Tesla’s version had something called a condenser to do the essential conversion and storage, using a system of pipes as the distribution process, similar to irrigation. Semantics, right? A rose by any other name and all that jazz, but the thing is, they _had_ electrical wires back then. Tesla might not have known the word ‘invertor’ because it genuinely might not have been coined yet, but he knew the difference between a wire—” Ana reached out to knock on the metal post growing out of the back of the boxy machine. It sounded a deep, ringing tone; hollow. “—and a pipe.”

“THIS IS VERY EDUCATIONAL,” Freddy said with one raised eyebrow over heavily-lidded eyes. “WHAT. DOES. IT. MEAN.”

“Well, I tell you one thing it means is that solar panel is going back on the roof first chance I get, because unless I am very much mistaken—and when it comes to mechanical crap, Freddy, I am never very much mistaken—what we have here is a Tesla condenser and cosmic energy irrigation system.” The words sounded as ridiculous coming out of her mouth as they felt right in her heart. She had to laugh. “God, can you imagine the head on that guy?”

“WHAT? WHO?”

“He wants what he wants and he wants it now,” Ana murmured, smiling. “It would have taken half a year for the city to run power out here. Even he couldn’t have pushed it through any faster and he didn’t want to wait. It’s actually easier for him to build a goddamn Tesla condenser than to delay the grand opening of his pizza parlor for six months. That is…Words fail me. So many people would flip their shit if they knew this thing even existed that it might permanently alter Earth’s rotation, but here it is.”

“HERE. IT. IS,” Freddy echoed, still looking at her rather than the machinery. “WHAT. ARE. YOU. GOING. TO. DO. WITH. IT.”

“Well, I haven’t got it completely figured out yet, but I will, and as soon as I do, we can have the power back on.”

Freddy did not react with cheers and praise. His head tipped, shadowing his eyes as he studied her. At last, he folded his arms and said, “WHY. WOULD. YOU. DO. THAT.”

“Uh, okay. Number one,” she began, counting them off on her fingers. “A coffee maker I could plug in. Number two, the use of a refrigerator. Number three, I could actually use my Easy-Bake Oven. Number three-b, Chica could use my Easy-Bake Oven. Number four, I could get the water working, which means flushing toilets and real showers. Number five—”

“YOU’RE. NOT. GOING. TO. TELL. ANYONE.”

“No. Hell, no, even.” Ana hid a yawn against the back of her hand and shook her head. “It’s fun to imagine a world where everyone had one of these in the basement and a flying car in the garage, but the reality is, it would be seized and weaponized, I’d be arrested and possibly permanently detained just for knowing about it, and the greater public would go right on using the same old environment-killing city-regulated power until the last drop of profit had been squeezed out of it. So no. I’m not telling anyone. I just want to be able to play with it. What do you say, b—uh, Freddy?”

Freddy rubbed his forehead, growling at the lowest register of his speaker. “AN-N-A. IT’S. LATE,” he said at last. “CAN. WE. TALK. ABOUT. THIS. TOMORROW.”

“Sure. No rush. I’ve got plenty on my plate right now and that isn’t really why I came down here anyway. I just…had a bad dream. It relaxes me to think about mechanical problems instead of, you know, real ones.”

Freddy grunted. “DO. YOU. WANT. TO. TALK—”

“No.”

“—ABOUT. YOUR. DREAM,” Freddy finished.

“Oh.” Ana glanced at him self-consciously. “You sure? Most people think listening to other people’s dreams is boring.”

“MOST. PEOPLE. HAVEN’T. SPENT. YEARS. IN. AN. EMPTY. RESTAURANT. TO. LEARN. WHAT. BORING. REALLY. IS.”

“Good point,” said Ana, but she didn’t go on to tell him about the nightmare.

Freddy didn’t ask again, not with words anyway, although Freddy was awfully good at saying things without talking. His stare itched at her as she explored the innards of the thing Ana was already thinking of as a Tesla condenser, and like any other itch, the more she tried to ignore it, the more intensely it itched, while the more she actually distracted herself, the harder it was to keep from thoughtlessly scratching.

At last, and perfectly aware that she was not quite changing the subject, Ana pointed back at the door to the Grotto and said, “I didn’t touch it, by the way. I’ve been good.”

Freddy went over to the door and put his hands on the wheel hatch. It resisted, not as much as it had the first time, and opened with an ear-splitting metallic groan. Freddy stood aside, motioning within as tiny spiders, disturbed by this midnight invasion, scattered over his feet (some of them crawling inside the cracks of his casing to seek sanctuary within his body). “ACCESS IS RESTRICTED. MEANS. I. CAN’T. LEAVE. THE. DOOR. OPEN. BUT. IF. YOU. NEED. TO. GO. IN. THEN. GO. IN. IF. YOU’RE. LOOKING. FOR. SOMETHING. I’LL. HELP. YOU. LOOK.”

“No,” said Ana. And after a moment, she said it again. “No. Why would I want to? I found what I was looking for, didn’t I?”

“DID. YOU.” Freddy waited, but when Ana didn’t answer, he released the wheel hatch and came back to her. “WHAT. WERE. YOU. LOOKING. FOR.”

“You know. The glowstick.”

“NO,” said Freddy. “I. DON’T. MEAN. THE. TOY. I. MEAN. WHAT. WERE. YOU. REALLY. LOOKING. FOR.”

“Oh Jesus, you can’t guess?” Ana touched a pipe, following where it led from the source, through the filters, to the tank. “My aunt, of course. Aunt Easter.”

His eyes were glass and plastic, servos and springs. They had no emotion and therefore, did not bleed away that grim stare she so often attributed to Freddy, nor did they fill again with pained understanding. He was an expressive machine and she was an imaginative person. “OH.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Ana went over to the water treatment system. She looked at it, into it, finding comfort in the familiar layout of hoses and valves, pumps and tanks. She thought of Mr. Faust again—not the boy and not Mike Schmidt’s murderous accomplice, but just the old man with the awkward, intense way of talking, telling her he’d never met a man half as trustworthy as the least machine. Its needs were simple, its wonders many, its flaws predictable and usually reparable. And not alive, that was the important thing. Operational or out of order, functional or non-functional, but not alive and therefore, unable to die.

“I really thought I was going to find her when I got back,” she heard herself say. To Freddy, of all people. “Not alive, but I’d find her. Because…Because she wouldn’t _leave_ , you know? She’d never leave. If you knew her, you’d know that. She kept David’s room exactly the way it was when he left. She built him a playroom and bought him movies. She fucking _destroyed_ her house making sure he’d have everything he could ever possibly want when he came back to her, so how could she leave him? How could she…How could she leave me? God, that sounds so stupid when I say it out loud,” she muttered, rubbing at her eyes. “Like I was ever coming back. Maybe I didn’t have a choice back then, but I’ve had ten thousand opportunities to come back and I didn’t, so I left her, just like everyone else. I’m part of the reason she did…what I know in my heart she did.”

He reached for her. She saw his shadow-arm stretch out and moved away. He lowered his arm to his side again and said nothing.

“The problem is,” said Ana, inspecting the machinery from her new position, “that I keep thinking of her as _my_ Aunt Easter. But she was her own person. She had this whole other life and I was such a small part of it. I’ll never know who she really was. I’ll never know the demons she was wrestling with or how hard it was for her, to go on living in that empty house. Maybe she started drinking. Maybe one too many postcards got left on her windshield. Maybe she reached out to David and he told her he never wanted to see her again. I’ll never know what happened. And that’s the first thing. I’ll never know. And if you…oh damn it, why am I crying again?…If you only knew how it feels not to know…maybe you’d understand how I could actually _want_ to find her here. I believed it…because I wanted to believe it…because as bad a story as that is, it’s still a better one than believing she could just walk up into the mountains and eat a bullet where no one will ever find her.

“And that’s the second thing,” she said, taking an access panel off the side of the condenser to get a look at its works. “No one’s found her, so there’s no body, so she’s not really dead, is she? And she’s sure not alive. She’s just like David now, gone. Have I ever told you about David?”

“I’VE. HEARD. YOU. TELL. BONNIE. ABOUT. HIM.”

“He was my cousin. Still is, I guess. He was my best friend, my only friend. He and his mom were my everything when I was a kid, and then one day, I guess his dad came and got him and that was that. He was gone. I called her that night, looking for him. And she was here. Well, not here,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean the other Freddy’s, Circle Drive. They’re all the same place in my mind.”

Freddy grunted.

“I called her and she told me to come over. David was there. And his father, I guess. And she must have known that would be the last time and maybe that was her way of letting me say goodbye. It was my one chance, you know? And I blew it.”

“YOU. DIDN’T. GO.”

“No. No, I’ve never been in any of them. I tried once.” She glanced at him, remembering that day, the smell of the air, the sound of the tires, the smell of pizza wafting through the door as she lay on the curb… 

“I never made it,” she finished and looked back at the machine. “This is the only Freddy’s I’ve ever really known.” She thought about it and managed an ironic little laugh. “It would be, right?”

“WHAT. DOES. THAT. MEAN.”

“It means…I don’t know. The Freddy’s I wanted was all full of bright lights and happy noise and pizza. You were there, and you were…clean and gentle and kind.”

Freddy looked away.

“But this is the one that I got,” Ana said. “The one where nothing works and everything’s rotten and broken and stinks…and empty. If this were a horror movie, the big twist would be that I’ve been dead since that night when I was fifteen and this is my personal hell. You know, sometimes when I see you guys performing, I find myself thinking maybe the place really is open. That it’s clean and bright and full of kids and I only see it this way because I’m dead. Bonnie says this place is haunted.” She glanced at him, dredging up half a smile. “What if I’m the ghost?”

“I. DON’T. BELIEVE. IN. GHOSTS,” said the talking teddy bear.

“Me, neither. But something has to make all this make sense and the alternative is that we’re not dead, that not only are we alive, but we have to go on living. In this place, of all places.” She tried to smile, but it wasn’t a joke and Freddy wasn’t laughing. “In this mess,” she said, letting the smile bleed away. She shivered. She wasn’t cold. “And the whole world’s moved on and left us behind. And even if you fixed what was broken, it’ll still be dark and empty, because the only people who remember you are the ones who want to hurt you.”

“WAS. THAT. YOUR. BAD. DREAM,” Freddy asked, startling her a little. She’d forgotten that was how this conversation had started. “WAS. IT. ABOUT. THIS. PLACE. DID. ONE. OF. US. HURT. YOU.” His head lowered, shadows eclipsing his features in a frown. “WAS. IT. ME.”

“No. It was this place, the maze in the ceiling. The mermaid was chasing me. I think it was the mermaid,” she said, more to herself than to him. The dream was already hazy. All she could remember now was the white face glowing out of the darkness…and her aunt’s voice. “I think I’ve had it before. The dream, I mean. It feels familiar. And I really don’t like that mermaid.”

“IT’S. JUST. A. TOY.”

“That’s what Bonnie says, but it’s an evil toy. I don’t like it.” And before she knew it, out came the truth: “It looks like my aunt.”

His ears came up. “WHAT?”

“Sort of. I mean, obviously, she didn’t have a tail, but she was blonde…and she’s dead. Not much of a similarity, I know.” She glanced at him. “I have a tendency to humanize inanimate objects.”

He didn’t answer, but he smiled.

Ana went back to staring at the condenser. Freddy waited with her. The quiet was companionable.

“I kind of want to do something,” she said at last. “You won’t like it.”

“YOU. WANT. TO. GET. RID. OF. THE MERMAID.”

“Not exactly. Look, I’m just going to ask. You can say no. I won’t argue.”

“I’M. LISTENING.”

Ana took a breath and turned to fully face him. “I do want to go back inside. Just one more time. I want to clean it. I want to leave her…in a good place. And then I want to weld the door shut,” Ana said, before he could say no.

“ALL RIGHT. BUT. PROMISE. ME. YOU. WON’T.” He broke off suddenly with an electronic pop of static and tipped his head back to squint at her. “WAIT. YOU. WANT. TO. WHAT.” 

“Weld the door shut,” said Ana, knowing that was the part that had hung him up. “Think of it as super-glue for metal stuff. I want to close the door so it never opens again.”

Ana didn’t hear a hiss, but he must have released a puff of air because some of the hanging webs behind him in the Grotto swayed, catching the draft.

The movement caught his eye. He looked at the webs, then at the mermaid, then at the hatch itself, and finally at her again. “CAN. YOU. DO. THAT.”

“Sure. I’ve got a welder’s torch.”

“WHY?”

“Oh, Rider took me to this Renaissance Faire once and this chick had a stall with all these incredible steel sculptures, like dragons and shit. I was stupid-high, so I said, ‘Hey, I could do that,’ and Rider fucking whipped out his phone and ordered me one on the spot. I wasted a couple months trying to be all artistic and shit, but I am not a fabricator. I get some use out of it every now and then, but it’s pretty much just sat there ever since.”

“NO. I. MEAN. WHY. WOULD. YOU. DO. THAT.”

“Yeah, I know what you meant.” Ana sighed and ran a hand through her hair until it knotted up in her braid. “I don’t know. Because I’m stupid and even though I don’t believe in ghosts, I still sort of believe in dreams. And I think this one’s telling me that my Aunt Easter is gone, but she’ll always keep coming back because there’s nothing to stop her. There’s no body and no grave to put it in, nothing and nowhere to mourn. There’s no closure. Do you…Do you at least kind of know what I mean?”

“YES,” he said, and weirdly enough, she thought he did.

“Well, that’s what I want. I want to close the door. I don’t just want it to be closed and I don’t care if access is restricted and no one can ever open it or even find it. I want to be the one to close the door. I want to dig the grave and put her in it and close the fucking door so hard that no one can ever open it again, not even me. I want to close the door…so I can open the one that leads to the rest of my life. And I want to fumigate first,” she added after a moment’s thought. “Because seriously, so many spiders. But the door will never open again,” she repeated, making sure he heard her and knew it wasn’t a metaphor. “So if that’s a problem for you—”

“NO.”

“It’s just that I know how you feel about vandalism and it doesn’t get much more vandalized than that.”

“VANDALISM. ISN’T. ABOUT. WHAT. PEOPLE. DO. BUT. WHY. THEY. DO. IT.” He glanced down at his hand, flexing the fingers as if testing them, then visibly braced himself and reached out to clasp her shoulder. “THIS. IS. A. GOOD. THING. JUST. DON’T. DO. ANYTHING. UNLESS. I’M. THERE. ACCESS IS RESTRICTED. MEANS. I. HAVE. TO. LET. YOU. IN. IF. YOU. GO. IN. WITHOUT. ME. IT’S. TRESPASSING. AND. I. HAVE. TO. TAKE. YOU. OUT.”

“Does that mean yes?”

“YES.”

The web-curtains in the Grotto caught another phantom breeze.

“Okay. Today? I mean, in the morning, but you know…today?”

“FINE. BUT. FOR. TONIGHT…” He went to the Grotto door and closed it, giving the wheel that extra quarter-turn to do the job right before turning back to her again. “BED. TIME. BEAR. SAYS. IT’S. TIME. TO. GO. TO. SLEEP.”

“Damn that Bedtime Bear,” said Ana with a sigh that turned into a yawn. “Why did I ever sign up for Sleepytime Toddler Camp?”

“I. CAN. ONLY. ASSUME. HUG. A. BUNNY. SNUGGLE. CAMP. WAS. FULL.”

“Smart ass.”

Freddy grunted, ducking out into the maze and standing well back as she pulled the heavy door shut. He stared over her head at the condenser right up until the end, but she guessed that wasn’t really so odd as it seemed; it was what she’d been staring at, after all. And once the condenser was out of sight, Freddy looked down at her without needing any further prompt, saying, “CAN. YOU. FIND. YOUR. WAY. OUT.”

“I found my way in, didn’t I?”

Freddy grunted, switching off his eyes and limping away into the dark. “GOOD. NIGHT. THEN.”

“Night.” 

They went their separate ways at the first T-section, Freddy to his endless watch and Ana back to her bunny. Settling once more against Bonnie’s soft, insanely toxic fibracene-flocked shoulder, Ana’s brain gathered in all its loose thoughts—Aunt Easter as the mermaid, Mr. Faust as the old man and young boy, Erik Metzger with his shirt unbuttoned, and the Puppet, laughing and crying—and let them go.

“Everything-ing-ing okay?” Bonnie asked, smoothing her braid back once before putting his arm around her.

“All good in the hood,” she assured him, closing her eyes, as down in the Mermaid’s Grotto, unseen, a long, dark arm emerged from the narrow shaft set in the ceiling. Something small dropped from the Puppet’s claws, landing with a metallic jingle in the web-choked kelp beds, almost exactly where the glowstick had fallen earlier that day and where, with luck, it would be as easily found.


	22. Chapter 22

# CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The sun did not rise until 6:01, but for Ana, the day began at 3:48, when she gave up on even pretending to sleep and crawled out from under her table to dress and get to work. By four, she was on the roof, fueling herself with Redline and Pop-Tarts as she spread hot asphalt, set another bucket to heating, laid thermoset, took an empty bucket off the roof and hauled a full one up, just in time to spread some more hot asphalt.

At a quarter to five, as Ana lowered her breather to take a long, thirsty swig of Redline under a sky gone greyish with pre-dawn light, Will Slater’s alarm clock rang and he roused himself with a cough and a curse to shut it off. Three streets down, co-worker Matthew Wyborn was already awake and in the shower following his morning workout, singing along with Katy Perry, but quietly, so as not to wake the parents he still lived with. Another two streets and a few houses further east, Bats was just dozing off in his half-converted basement bedroom while Riley slept soundly on the sagging sofa a few feet away and dreamed happily of mowing the lawn for Bat’s mom while she made dinner and called him a good boy. And well out of town, perched high on the edge of the canyon, an old man who slept very little stepped out onto the balcony of his second-floor bedroom with a cup of coffee and a single slice of unbuttered toast to watch the sun rise over the quarry. In the far distance, he could just make out the unnatural edges and angles of the only house on Coldslip Mountain, where he imagined Ana Stark to be at this moment. He drank his coffee and thought about her, but when his cup was empty, he left the balcony and got on with his day. 

It was the Fourth of July.

At nine, Slater and Wyborn were at Jewel Lake Park in their work clothes, along with the rest of Shelly’s crew, doing all the unappreciated menial labor that would make the holiday a happy one for all the lucky sons and daughters of bitches who got to just attend it instead of make it happen. Neither noticed Ana drive by in her truck on her way to the Lowe’s in Hurricane to pick up a tank of oxy-fuel for the welder, some filler rods and as many cans of spider-killing bug bombs as she could carry. By the time she went to her aunt’s house on Coldslip to pick up the welder from the garage, Riley was awake and eating the breakfast Bats’s mom made him. Seeing the unhappy shine in her eyes and thinking of his dream, he offered to mow the lawn for her. She told him to wait until Bats was awake, or he’d get angry. But she told him he was sweet to offer and gave him another pancake. She did not like Riley, although she considered him by far the least objectionable of her son’s friends, and she wished he would leave, but was afraid to talk to her son about it. Her son had become a stranger to her, an angry and dangerous stranger who was only wearing her son’s skin, stretching it out, making it less recognizable by the day. She had been locking herself into her bedroom at night for over a year now, but that was no longer enough to make her feel safe. Recently, she had begun to leave her purse with a few dollars in it out in the kitchen or the living room, with the idea that if he had something to steal out there, he wouldn’t force his way in and hurt her. And then she would cry, because her son had become this dangerous stranger she was afraid would hurt her and she had given up all hope that he would ever get better and now just wanted him to go away. In another week, that wish would haunt her. Today, it was just another hurt to carry in her mother’s heart while she fed her stranger/son’s least objectionable friend.

At ten, just as soon as Freddy’s eyes opened on the sight of Ana waiting to ask him to open up the Grotto, Jewel Lake Park officially opened, with cordons and temporary blocks in place to manage the crowds that would come later. It took a little more than an hour for Ana to set off all the foggers—two in the Grotto, the rest in the ceiling maze as far as she could throw them without losing direct sight of the vent she’d crawled in through. Then it was back to the roof while the fogger did its thing, by which time the relatively light day-crowds were forming along the main promenade at the park, and Slater and Wyborn were hiding from them behind the maintenance shed like a couple of schoolkids. 

Just after noon, Bats woke up, scraped his pipe and smoked the residue, got out of bed and went upstairs to tell his mother not to go anywhere because he needed the minivan that night, forcing her to uneasily admit she’d already promised it to Mrs. Pickett so the Relief Society could haul chairs, tables and toys to the on-site childcare station at the park. In the ensuing fight, Bats punched a hole in the kitchen wall next to his screaming mother’s head and she fled sobbing to her bedroom and locked the door. Bats took her keys and the forty dollars he found in her purse. Riley mowed the lawn. And down at Jewel Lake, Slater finally convinced Wyborn to come along on the scrapping expedition at Freddy’s later on because, “who knows with these guys, you know?” 

Bats drove the minivan to the Kellar house to spend his forty dollars, but Mason was out and Jack wouldn’t part with a flake without his brother’s knowledge. While they waited for him to show up, Mrs. Kellar came out on the deck to yell at everyone because the bake sale booth people could not get their shit together. Jack yelled back at her and it went back and forth for a while, but in the end, he got up, stomping and swearing. Mrs. Kellar told everybody to go home before she left with her son, and some of them did, but Bats hung around, still hoping for Mason. Unfortunately, after two hours sweating in the shrinking shade of the Kellar’s back yard, the only one who appeared was one of Mason’s friends from his prison days, Dan ‘Trigger-Man’ Taylor.

Trigger and Bats had about as much contact up to that point as two moons orbiting different planets in the same solar system, but being alone together on that afternoon encouraged one of those brief bouts of camaraderie that can sometimes develop at bus stations or in long ticket lines. Trigger took a twenty off Bats in exchange for a decent rock and the two smoked and talked, and somehow, Bats ended up maybe sort of mentioning the copper wires and whatnot that were apparently there for the taking at the old Freddy’s out by the quarry. Trigger, intrigued, asked how Bats would feel about another pair of hands in the group and Bats, in a surge of meth-induced magnanimity, said sure, the more the merrier. And if that was the case, Trigger had a friend, another of Mason’s moons, who had some experience with breaking into buildings and who might be amenable to lending his skills for a cut of the profits. Bats, who was beginning to realize he might have oversold the profit margin by, uh, several thousand dollars, heartily agreed and beat a hasty retreat.

For a while, the day passed uneventfully for all parties. Ana worked on the roof. Slater and Wyborn avoided work at the park. Bats and Riley played video games in the basement. Trigger sold drugs down at the lake and then took a walk along the promenade and watched the parade. In the lead car of the first float, Chad Faust and 2015’s Little Miss Mammon waved and threw candies while the old man sitting behind them searched the faces in the cheering crowds. A quiet day, all told, melting into a long, golden evening.

At six o’clock on the dot, as if answering the ringing of some fairy bell, Ana found a stopping place on the roof-work and went inside to see if Freddy was ready to let her into the Grotto. Although the show had just started, Freddy agreed and left Bonnie and Chica to carry on without him. As soon as Ana had gathered her welding supplies, they set off together for Pirate Cove, Ana in her disposable hazard suit and Freddy carrying the behemoth of a gas generator on his shoulder with the shop-vac under one arm, both believing all was well and everything would be exactly the same when they returned from the basement. 

Also at the stroke of six, Wyborn and Slater said no thank you to Shelly’s somewhat desperate offer of overtime pay and left the park. Wyborn went straight home to clean up, laughing at himself for wanting to make a good impression on a couple of small-time wannabe thugs like Bats and Riley, but still thinking in that small, secret part of himself that if this actually panned out better than the whole culvert fiasco had, this just might be the start of something. Just what ‘something’ was, he did not explore too deeply, even in the privacy of his own mind, but he looked down at his soapy, still boyish body in the shower and pictured it with tattoos and scars. Wild Man, he thought. That was a cool kind of name. Wild Man Wyborn… 

Slater, the only one of any of them to have any kind of premonition to how bad things were about to go, tried for fifteen minutes to figure out how the hell to get hold of Bats or Riley and cancel, but even in a town as small as Mammon, not every surname or phone number was known to him. In a fit of uncharacteristic sentimentality, he bought a package of sparklers for his kid and a bouquet of red, white and blue carnations for his kid’s mom and visited with them for half an hour. Later, she would tell everyone she blamed herself, that she knew something was wrong and she begged him to stay and talk about it, but in reality, when he said he had to go, she thanked him again for the flowers, gave him a cold ginger ale from the fridge for the road, reminded him Scotty started pre-school in the fall and needed new clothes, and never saw him again.

At the Kellar house, Trigger-Man dropped by looking for his friend and found him sucking on a beer in the backyard. Dentist, so-called not so much due to his own pearly whites, which admittedly were quite nice, but rather to his habit of taking out other people’s teeth, allowed himself to be pulled away from the group over which Jack presently presided and listened as Trigger made his pitch. Initially, Dentist was not interested, but as Mason was out at the Wagon Wheel getting his dick wet and likely to stay gone all night, and as Jack was an insufferable little shit with a loudmouth bitch for a mother, he ultimately agreed to come along. Trigger called Bats, who, together with Riley, removed the back seat from the minivan to make room for the all the scrap they’d be taking out of Freddy’s, then looked up ‘Slater’ in the town directory, and headed out to pick everyone up. 

Bats was not happy to see Wyborn.

Neither Wyborn nor Slater were happy to see Trigger and Dentist. 

Words were exchanged and for a moment, it seemed the whole escapade might fall apart right then and there, but Riley smoothed things over and at 7:22, six men squeezed into four seats and set off for Old Quarry Road and the high plateau on which Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria perched, abandoned and forgotten. At nearly the same instant as Bats turned the key in the ignition and put his foot on the gas, two miles away at Jewel Lake Park, Mr. Faust accepted a tasteful plaque from town commissioner Wendy Rutter in acknowledgement of his many generous contributions to Mammon’s quality of life, after which he returned to his seat in the grand viewing box, front row center, between his smiling grandson and an empty chair and resumed scanning the crowd for someone who wasn’t there.

A single skyrocket was launched, trailing colorful smoke and exploding with a loud bang to let everyone in Mammon know that, while the real showstopper was hours off yet, the festivities had officially begun.

# * * *

At 7:35, Bonnie finished his last solo medley of kid’s songs and handed the stage over to an absent Freddy for story-time while he went to the arts and crafts room. Once there, he waited out the five minutes he was required to wait for guests in an empty room and that was it, the seven o’clock set was done. Just one more to go and it was even shorter—the last set of the day was always mainly Freddy’s fairy tales and lullabies—and then the restaurant would ‘close’. He’d have one more hour to wait out, paralyzed and bored, but after that, he’d have eight hours to…well, walk around and be bored, since Ana would probably work right up to the minute she fell asleep. But this was the big weekend and once the roof was done, she’d have more time. He knew intellectually that meant she’d probably start spending more nights at her real home, but a bunny could dream.

Although he was now in a limited free-roam state until the next set started, Bonnie went back to the dining room. Still no sign of Freddy or Ana. The Grotto must be a lot worse than he remembered it looking. It hadn’t taken her this long to clean any of the other rooms, except the gym, of course, which had been in a category all by itself.

Chica was just leaving the dining room when he reached it, on her way to the arcade, no doubt, now that her shift in the reading room was over. She stopped to hold the plastic sheets aside for him, her eyes moving with concern over his face and lingering on the top of his head. “ARE YOU OKAY?”

Huh? Oh. His ears. 

He’d had them folded down as flat to his body as he could get them and this probably made him look upset, but he wasn’t. It was just the Fourth of July, and fireworks had been screaming, popping and booming steadily for hours. He was sick of the noise, that was all, but he couldn’t say so. All he could do was bring them up and waggle them playfully at Chica, saying, “YOU BET!” and then fold them back down again, letting her see it as a deliberate act and not his stupid bunny ears doing his emoting for him.

“DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH ME?” she asked, pointing down the hall.

And get his ass kicked at skee-ball for the next fifteen minutes? Pass, as Ana would say.

“WHERE’S MY GUITAR?” he told her, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the show stage. 

“ARE YOU SURE?”

He shrugged. “LET’S JAM!” he replied, meaning, ‘Come and sit with me, if you want,’ although he kind of hoped she wouldn’t. He didn’t mind if Chica hung around—it took a lot before Chica’s presence was abrasive—he was just bored and knew he wasn’t good company.

She looked uncertain, but said, “OKAY, SEE YOU LATER!”

“BYE NOW.” Bonnie took a step toward the stage, then turned around and swept the plastic sheets aside again. “HEY, CHICA!”

“HI BONNIE!”

He had to click through a few files, but found the one he wanted within just a few seconds. Tapping the side of his own muzzle, he said, “YOU HAVE SUCH A PRETTY SMILE.”

Chica touched her beak and beamed at him. It shouldn’t make that much difference, especially considering all the chips, cracks, bald patches and exposed bones they all showed, but it did and no one knew it better than Bonnie. 

As Chica waddled off into the dark, Bonnie went to the stage and sat down. He put his back to the wall, pulled his good leg up, stretched his bad one out and picked up his guitar. There were no strings, hadn’t been for years, but he could hear the music well enough in his head as he played. He warmed himself up with _While My Guitar Gently Weeps_ —it was that kind of day—then faked his way through _If You’ll Be My Man_ before finally settling in with the unfinished song he had creatively titled _Ana_. He didn’t have that much time before the next set and he could have easily spent it all trying out different breakdowns for the instrumental section, but he hadn’t even made it through one playthrough when Chica came noisily down the hall and through the plastic again.

“HI BONNIE!” she said happily.

“HI CHICA!” he replied, letting the triggered response come out of him without resistance and without looking up.

“I LOVE MAKING NEW FRIENDS!” Chica crossed the room a whole lot faster than she ought to and grabbed at his arm. “IS THERE A BIRTHDAY BOY? LET’S EAT! IT’S TIME TO EAT!” 

If there was a moment of confusion, it hit and passed too quickly for Bonnie to register. He was bored and then he was terrified, that fast.

His ears came up just in time to hear the dull bang-bang that was not distant fireworks but instead the slamming of a car door right outside the lobby. Then voices. 

“Give me the crowbar. It’s jammed.”

“I can’t see anything.”

“Why are the windows covered?”

“To keep assholes like us from breaking ‘em.”

“No, I mean on the inside. They’re all covered with garbage bags or something.”

“What? Huh. Well, they weren’t the last time.”

“I NEED HELP,” Bonnie said, covering his speaker to muffle the sound and dropping his guitar to grab at Chica’s hand. She pulled him to his feet and for a moment they just held hands, looking back in the direction of the lobby and listening to the rattle of the barricade.

“WHAT SHOULD WE DO NOW?” Chica asked, also covering her speaker.

Bonnie could only stare at her. Whoever was out there, they were coming in. Even if they couldn’t get past the barricade—and he doubted it would hold them back for long—the West Hall Exit was still just loose boards over a gaping hole, the doorknob on the back fire exit was broken, and the loading dock might be wide open for all he knew. They were coming in all right, and Bonnie couldn’t do a damned thing to stop them, even if they should decide to swing that crowbar at his face…or Chica’s. Freddy was the only one who could wake them out of their operating hour parameters, and at the moment, he was downstairs, where he didn’t even know this was happening and where neither Chica nor Bonnie could go and tell him.

They were on their own.

“LET’S PLAY HIDE AND SEEK!” Chica urged.

Bonnie nodded, holding her hand to steady her as they retreated from the dining room, but hide where? The restaurant was ‘open’. They could only go where they were pathed to go during operating hours, while those guys presently breaking down the barricade could go anywhere. 

“COME ON,” said Bonnie in a despairing burst of inspiration. He led Chica down the East Hall—the barricade gave way behind them with a rattling snap and a short cheer, angrily hushed—and into the back wing all the way to the arcade. The few games Ana had left provided no real cover, but that wasn’t what he was after anyway.

Next to the empty prize corner were the restrooms, one with a cartoon version of Freddy on the door and the other with some buxom grinning girl-bear whose name Bonnie couldn’t care less about at the moment. The voices he’d heard had all been male; did that make them less likely to investigate a girl’s bathroom or more?

Bonnie switched on his eyes for a quick peek in each before ushering Chica into the girl’s room. It looked the worst and hopefully, that meant it smelled the worst. Ana had taken out the toilets, so there should be plenty of room in the stalls. They weren’t completely hidden, but if the guys didn’t look too hard, they might not notice the giant purple and yellow feet under the raised wall-panels.

So it might work, but for how long? In eight minutes—seven now—they’d both have to be on stage for the eight o’clock set. What were the odds of those guys getting their kicks and leaving in just seven lousy minutes? It was the Fourth of July! They’d come to blow shit up and there was nothing in this damn building more blow-upable than a performing animatronic.

“COME PLAY WITH ME,” Chica said, backing awkwardly into the furthest stall. 

“I’LL B-B-BE RIGHT BACK, KIDS,” he promised. “YOU WON’T FIND FOXY HERE. HE’S IN PIRATE COVE.” And if he could tell Foxy what was happening, Foxy could go down to the Grotto and tell Freddy. He didn’t know what that would mean with Ana there, but maybe Foxy could keep Ana occupied—God, that he could ever think _that_ was something to hope for—while the three of them took care of things. 

“I’LL COME WITH YOU.”

Bonnie shook his head. “STAY SAFE OUT THERE, KIDS!”

Chica nodded reluctantly. “YOU, TOO. BE CAREFUL. SAFETY FIRST! NEVER EVER TALK TO STRANGERS. DON’T FIGHT. PLEASE. RULE NUMBER TWO: DON’T FIGHT!”

That was an easy promise. Bonnie had no intention of taking on a group of guys during operating hours, when all he could do was laugh along as they broke him the fuck apart. 

In the dark, he made his way back to the signpost where the halls crossed and stopped there to listen. They were inside, all right, voices raised. Arguing. At least three, maybe more. One of them kept saying they should leave, but no one seemed to be paying him any attention.

Keeping his ears aimed back at them, Bonnie moved on as quietly as he could, deeper into the building until he came to the door to Pirate Cove. He opened it, but that was all he could do. If he turned his eyes on, he’d be able to see the entrance to the Treasure Cave. Hell, with three or four unhurried steps, he could reach out and touch it, but until the restaurant was closed, Bonnie couldn’t set one foot across the threshold into Pirate Cove.

“HI FOXY,” he called, covering his speaker. The Cove was open to the West Hall on the other end of the room. There was one door between the West Hall and the dining room, but only one, and the building echoed now that Ana had cleared and cleaned so much of it. “HI FOXY! IT’S TIME TO ROCK!”

The stage was quiet. Had he gone into his cabin or was he just ignoring him?

Bonnie agonized, cursing inwardly as he checked over his shoulder for telltale lights in the hall behind him, but all was dark for now. He couldn’t even hear them anymore, but this deep in the building, that only meant they could be anywhere.

“LET’S PLAY HIDE AND SEEK!” he called. “LOOKS LIKE WE’VE GOT A BIRTHDAY PARTY! COME ON, KIDS, IT’S TIME TO ROCK! WHERE’S FREDDY? WHERE’S—”

A wooden door banged open and Foxy snapped, “She ain’t-t-t here, ye jealous ass! She’s working below-d-d-decks with Freddy! Get off with ye!”

Slam.

“HI FOXY!” Bonnie called desperately, and then took his hand off his speaker and said it again, as loud as he dared: “HI FOXY!” 

No answer.

Bonnie stumbled back and let the door close. When this was over…if they all came through it…he was going to tear Foxy a new one, but right now, there just wasn’t time.

When he got back to the signpost, he could see their flashlights, the white circles splashing around on the plastic sheets Ana had hung to block off the East Hall. And before he’d reached the arcade, he could hear that plastic crackle as they came through it.

In the arcade, Bonnie moved the skee-ball stand so it kind of sort off blocked the restrooms from view. Maybe that would help. It was the best he could do. He went into the girl’s room and wedged himself into the stall next to Chica, folding his ears flat so they wouldn’t stick up over the stall. He overrode as many of his internal functions as he could, going as quiet as he could go, but the low drone and wheeze of their two support systems had a way of bouncing big off the tiles. If someone did open that door, there was no way they could possibly miss them. And even if no one came in, Bonnie and Chica would still have to go out on their own in just a few minutes.

“DON’T BE SCARED,” Chica said.

He couldn’t say he wasn’t. Of course he was, but not for the reasons she might be thinking. He’d survived having his face smashed open before and he could do it again, but that was far from the worst that could happen here. 

Bonnie reached a hand over the top of the stall and she did the same. Their fingers laced briefly—one more touch, maybe their last—then came unlocked. He lowered his arm again to wait.


	23. Chapter 23

# CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

So it looked like the scrapping thing was a bust, which was fine with Riley, since the little he’d understood of the process sounded like a whole lot of work, but he was glad they’d come anyway, because this place was cool. He’d been in a few abandoned buildings before, back in his hometown, but only after they’d already made the transition to flophouse. Crawling under the rusted drop-link barricade and through the heavy doors to see that giant banjo-playing chicken had been like going through some kid-show magic door into a cartoony new world. 

He wandered out of the lobby as the others argued over all the stuff that wasn’t there, pushing through sheets of thick, hanging plastic into a huge room where he guessed people used to eat. There was only one table left and no chairs at all, but there was a stage over on the inward wall, so he guessed this was where the animal-robots used to sing and stuff. As he got closer, he saw an old electric guitar still laying on the stage, one of the funny looking ones that was split at the bottom into two points instead of round. It was pretty beat-up and the strings were gone, but it was heavy, so maybe it still worked, which meant one of the other guys would want it. Riley held onto it for a while anyway, looking wistfully around as he tried in his limited way to imagine the show, but then he saw another plastic statue, this one of an alligator, and put the guitar down so he could get a better look.

It was sitting up on his hind legs like a dog begging at the table, holding a big old brown jug and wearing a plastic bandana molded to its neck. Its eyes were gone, giving it a black-socket stare over that cheerful toothy gator-grin. It stood in the corner of the room between a wide doorway covered in plastic and a window to the next room also covered in plastic. All the doors out of this place were covered in plastic, in fact, which gave even this big room a closed-in feeling; anything could be out there, just beyond that plastic, watching. It was all incredibly spooky in a fun way, but Riley kept his enjoyment to himself, intensely aware that he was the only one having a good time.

“I don’t get it,” Slater kept saying and at the moment, he was saying it as Trigger slammed him up against the wall. “I was here just last winter and this place was packed! It was shoulder high in that front room! It took me an hour to dig in and there was stuff here, I swear to God! Everything was still here! The stuff in the gift shop, the fucking cash register, everything!”

“Well, it’s gone now.” Bats came into the dining room too, sweeping his flashlight along the ceiling. There was a pretty big hole up there, like it had all fallen in, although there was nothing on the floor and no hole straight through to the sky. Riley quickly found himself a spot to stand against the wall next to the table where he was out of the way. “Christ, everything’s gone. There’s no lights, there’s no speakers, there’s no…Guys, look at this.”

Four more flashlight beams homed in on a hole in the wall next to the alligator, fairly large and almost perfectly square, that exposed some of the wood inside the walls and a little blue box with a plug-thingy in it.

“Oh what the fuck,” Trigger said in an angry, baffled way.

“That’s a stud,” Riley supplied, pleased that he’d remembered what Ana had called it.

“Not that, dumbass,” Bats said, and pointed at the plug-thingy. “There’s no wires. Someone’s already been here.”

“Wasted my fucking night,” Dentist muttered, walking over to the table and lifting the black cloth that covered it. “Or maybe not. Looks like someone’s living here.”

“No way,” said Bats and Slater together. They looked at each other and both stepped back. “Not in Freddy’s,” Bats said, by himself this time. “Nobody comes here, man.”

“We’re here,” replied Dentist, moving on to investigate whatever was behind the plastic sheets at the back of the room.

Slater’s friend, Wyborn, had still not come all the way out from the lobby. Now he raised his hand like a kid in school and said, “Guys, do you smell that?”

Everyone stopped what they were doing to sniff the air.

“That’s the quarry,” said Slater.

“That’s blood,” said Bats, grinning at Riley. “Freddy’s been hungry.”

Riley laughed obligingly, unintimidated. He’d been around Mason long enough to know what blood smelled like. The restaurant had all the usual derelict-building smells, enhancing its spooky atmosphere, but the strongest odors were not threatening ones.

“No, that’s fresh-cut lumber,” said Wyborn urgently. “Look!”

All of them aimed their flashlights at the floor. Although it was way cleaner than any abandoned building ought to be, it was far from spotless and the checkerboard tiles showed plenty of smudgy tracks, as well as stuff Riley had heard Ana call construction-dandruff: splatters of plaster and paint, sawdust and grit, some with bootprints stamped into them and a few that looked like the marks of bare feet.

“That’s impossible,” said Slater before any of the others could respond. “They don’t change a fucking light bulb in this town without the order going through Shelly or Villart. Every job Shelly gets, he’s got to bitch about and every job he doesn’t get, he’s got to bitch about twice as loud. There’s no way they’d be redoing Freddy’s and I wouldn’t have heard about it.”

“Dude.” Wyborn came all the way into the dining room at last, just to point back at the plastic he’d come through. “How many scrappers do you know do this? How many sweep the fucking floor after they’re done stripping wires? This is insane! We need to get gone!” His voice rose, cracking like a teenager’s in the extremity of his panic. “The sheriff lives two doors down from me! My kid brother is dating his niece! I can’t get arrested, man!”

Trigger and Dentist scowled, but Bats let out a laugh, losing at least ten hard-lived years as he looked around the empty room in amazement. “What, are they seriously going to reopen this place? That’s awesome!” Seeing Trigger and Dentist, he added, “I mean, it’s a shitty kid’s place and all that, but it had a fucking arcade, at least. Plus, they sold soda by the pitcher with, like, free refills.”

“Never touch the stuff, man,” Dentist said, going all the way through the plastic. His flashlight’s beam dulled at once to a smudgy blur, drawn on the darkness, illuminating nothing in the dining room. “Rots your teeth. Hey, that’s kind of funny. They got a rooster on the boy’s shitter.”

Riley obediently laughed, drawing a contemptuous smirk from Trigger. 

“Why is that funny, Riley?”

Riley stopped laughing at once and frowned at some tiles that needed scuffing right in front of him. “Chickens are funny birds.”

From behind the plastic came a long-suffering sigh. “It’s a cock, dumbass. A cock on the boy’s…never mind. Jesus Christ, Trig.”

“He’s Jack’s friend, not mine.” 

“You forgot to mention they also sold beer by the pitcher,” Slater put in, clearly hoping to score a few points.

Now Bats scowled, but Trigger perked up. “I didn’t think you Mormons even believed in beer.”

“Yeah, but the old guy who owns the place isn’t in the church.” Quickly, realizing that knowing this fact revealed he himself was, Slater added, “My dad says he used to work at the base. They were doing all these top-secret experiments, like, with drugs and stuff.”

“Oh yeah? What sort of drugs?”

“All kinds,” Slater said sagely.

“Bullshit,” said Bats. “They built planes, man.”

“That was just a cover. Anyway, when the base closed, the guy was left behind, only suddenly, he’s all peace and love and furry animals. He builds these pizza places for all us lucky little kids, but there’s an awful lot of grown-ups renting the private room, getting drunk and doing drugs and having orgies.”

Trigger snorted, but Bats said, “No, that part’s true. Supposedly, one of the restaurants had fuckable animals.”

“They had what?” Trigger burst out laughing, actually slapping at his thigh. “Oh, you fucking churchies! It’s always the quiet ones you gotta watch!”

“I don’t mean sheep or dogs or whatever. I mean those guys.” Bats pointed his flashlight at a poster on the wall. “The mascots.”

“So…what? They’d get people in animal costumes to fuck you?”

“They’re not costumes. They’re like robots.”

“Guys!” Wyborn said again, louder and, if possible, even more nervously. “If people are working here, they’re going to send, like, a cop or someone around to make sure everything’s locked up! We’ve got to get out of here!”

“The gym is fucking empty,” Dentist announced from the other side of the plastic. “Like, they took everything. Every. Fucking. Thing. Name me a thing, they took it. And it’s not just empty, it’s clean. New walls up in places, so they are definitely rebuilding.” A couple more doors opened, releasing the putrid smell of an old outhouse. “Haven’t gotten as far as the restrooms.” Another door, this one letting in a great gust of quarry-flavored wind to sort of clear the air. “Or the playground. Huh. You’d think they’d have cleaned that shit up first. There’s literally a rusty metal spike sticking straight up out of the ground out here.”

Dentist emerged, only to go through the plastic hanging over another doorway. “Kitchen’s pretty clean,” he announced. “Can’t see where any recent work got done, but there’s garbage here. In a garbage bag. Cleanest fucking squatter I’ve ever seen.” Glass clinked. “Beer bottles in the sink. Coffee maker. Cooler.” Plastic creaked. “There’s ice in the cooler.”

“Oh Jesus,” whispered Wyborn, backing up. “Someone’s living here. Someone’s here right now.”

Flashlights twirled as everyone looked in all directions, but Dentist merely came calmly back to the doorway and swept aside the plastic to point down a wide hall. “I’m going to look around. Trig, you stay here and keep an eye on these pussies.”

“What do you want us to do?” Bats asked, stepping forward eagerly. 

“Down, doggy. I’ll whistle when I need you,” said Dentist, walking away. “Just stay put and don’t make any noise. You want to jack off to a picture of one of your sexy robot animals, you go right ahead. Oh yeah, there is definitely work going on here. They got a schedule and plans and shit all up over this bitch.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Slater insisted, moving like he was going to follow Dentist and look for himself. “You don’t drink beer at a work-site and you don’t—”

“Hey.” Trigger unfolded a knife and flicked it toward the stage. “Sit down and shut up. You and your girlfriend.”

“It’s cool,” Riley told Wyborn, not without sympathy. This wasn’t the plan and he knew it, but when you ran with Mason’s boys, plans had a way of changing. “Just be cool and everything’s going to be fine.”

Trigger laughed like that was a joke and it sort of was. Riley was not the one in charge here and would not have a vote when it came time to decide whether these two were accomplices or witnesses.

They waited. Riley had spent a number of afternoons waiting for violence to either happen or not happen and he was comfortable in the quiet. He stayed out of everyone’s way, just leaned up against the wall next to the table, looking at anything there was to look at in the dining room. Mostly the alligator, which was creepy and cool.

Soon, they heard Dentist’s footsteps moving in time with the chunka-chunka-chunk of heavy objects being carried. He shouldered through the plastic with two milk crates stacked in his arms and a grin on his face. “Jackpot,” he said and set them on the stage so they could all see. 

Riley’s excitement washed in and right back out again. Just a bunch of tools. 

“There’s a whole room full of this shit,” Dentist said, pointing back at the hall. “All kinds of shit. It’s like a fucking hardware store. Real clean, real professional looking. Easy money, man.”

“Let me see that.” Wyborn lunged, completely oblivious to the danger, and snatched a drill out of one of the crates. He turned it over, staring, then grabbed a circular saw and looked at that. He put both of them on the stage and ran—did not walk, but ran—across the room to push Riley aside and yank the tablecloth up to see what was under there for himself. 

He straightened up holding an old army-green duffel-bag by its worn canvas strap.

“I know that bag,” Riley said, moving away from the wall.

When he did, Wyborn looked up, then past him immediately to the wall where Riley had been standing. “Oh shit,” he said.

All the guys turned and aimed their flashlights at the poster Riley had apparently been leaning up against.

“Ana’s room,” Bats read. “Keep out. No bears allowed. Bunnies okay.”

A moment’s silence, as heavy as the moment before the prayer when Bats’s mom took Riley to church. Then Dentist turned and went back into the kitchen. His footsteps sounded, unhurried, diminishing, and were followed by the rattling bang of a garage door being lifted, then shut again. Back came Dentist’s footsteps and then the man himself, coming through the plastic with a broad white smile to say, “Her truck’s here.”

“Dude, you’ve got to put that stuff back,” said Wyborn seriously.

“The fuck I will.”

“If her truck’s here, she’s somewhere in the building! She could walk in any second!”

“Good,” said Dentist. “She better get here soon because I am ready for this party to start.”

Wyborn looked at them, then at Slater, and even at Riley, who shrugged. When you hung around with Mason’s guys, shit happened.

Just then, Trigger looked around, shut off his flashlight and hissed, “I hear something, man.”

Wyborn made a move, but Dentist caught him before he could more than lunge toward the lobby, swinging him around and giving him a playful slap on the cheek. “Where you going?” he asked, grinning. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to go. Come on, you and me. And you, what’s your name?” 

“Slater.”

“Slater, we’re all going to hunker down here in the gift shop and hide, okay? Like a surprise party. And nobody jumps out until the birthday girl shows up. You in?”

“Yeah,” Slater said after a moment. He looked at Riley as he walked into the gift shop, but didn’t seem too reassured by Riley’s smile and nod. 

Trigger went into the little hall at the back of the room and Bats followed, so Riley went with them and they all stood around in the dark.

It felt like a long wait to Riley, with nothing else to do and nothing to occupy his senses. What few cracks of sunlight made it into the lobby of the restaurant stayed there; without the flashlights, this narrow hall was absolutely black, darker than the darkest dark Riley had ever been in before. The smell seemed to intensify, mostly that rank undersmell that was piss and rot and all the other bad smells that collect in forgotten places. The sound of the wind came and went, like breathing. Then Riley heard something he could not quite recognize. It sounded like footsteps, but not like people—a contradiction that Riley could not begin to make sense of, but which made him feel hot and cold and disturbingly loose in the bowels.

He had not believed the stories Slater’s friends had told him about Freddy Fazbear. Even Riley Hill was not dumb enough to buy into the idea of a haunted child-eating teddy bear. And yet, when he heard those footsteps, Riley could think of nothing else that could make them. In that moment, a hundred thousand years of evolution were swept aside and he was just a small thing in a great darkness where monsters walk. He tried to tell himself it was exciting, like a really good horror movie or a Halloween fright night, but he didn’t quite believe it. He realized he was scared. Not terrified maybe, not yet, but genuinely afraid for his life.

“What is that?” Trigger whispered somewhere to his right. “That’s not boots. What is that? It’s metal, right? Is that some kind of equipment or…?”

“Dude, I don’t know,” Bats whispered back. “I think it’s…I think it’s…”

The plastic covering the hallway at one side of the stage crackled and the footsteps came into the dining room. Definitely footsteps and yes, definitely metal, at least partly. The awful lurching, dragging, wheezing stride of them continued on as the plastic moved again. Two of them. There were two of them.

Suddenly, all Riley could smell was his own sweat, the reek of smoke and the unwashed bodies of the two men next to him. All he could hear was their combined breath and how it rustled against the plastic. Whoever was out there had to know they were here. How could they not? 

But the footsteps weren’t coming any closer. The sound of them changed from clanking to thudding and soon stopped entirely.

It was quiet, so quiet Riley could hear his own ears pounding. It wasn’t a long wait, but like waiting for a gunshot, it was hard time to pass, no matter how little of it there was. His muscles ached; he tried to relax them and couldn’t.

Then lights snapped on, four of them, or actually, two sets of two. Eyes. Glowing monster eyes, looking right at him through the plastic, and even though he somehow knew—not guessed, but _knew_ —it was just more of those toy animals from the posters he’d been looking at, knowing it did not reduce his unease in the slightest. If anything, it amped right up to that finely drawn edge of terror.

Before he could even think to run, there came a great surge of confusing sound—the whine of a dentist’s drill, the hiss of steam, the crackle of radio static and the rattle of a broken toy—and a voice boomed out into the silence: “HI THERE! I’M YOUR BEST BUDDY, BONNIE THE BUNNY!”

Riley jumped. He thought he might have pissed himself a little, too, but at the moment, he didn’t care. His brain seemed to have split into two distinct Rileys, one that instantly recognized the cartoony quality of the voice and responded with instinctive childlike wonder, and one that just as instinctively warned him big eyes and big voices meant big teeth, no matter who they tried to look like.

“Jesus Christ,” whispered Trigger, peeking through the plastic.

“Yeah, they’ve looked better,” Bats whispered back. “Wonder where Freddy is?”

“You mean there’s more of them?”

“HI, I’M CHICA!” said another voice, as if in answer. It was girl’s voice this time, just as friendly, but just as full of hidden teeth, too.

“Yeah, a couple more. I guess they broke down though.”

Riley moved the plastic so he could see for himself.

At once, a breathy little giggle escaped him, but even then, his relief came with a hot tightening in his chest and a crawling in his nuts. As goofy and friendly as those things were, the sense of not-rightness remained. There was something too natural about their fidgety movements, something less like a broken toy and more like the spastic twitches of a guy who really needed a fix. There was a word for that kind of moving, the kind you didn’t want to do but didn’t know how to stop; Riley may not have known that word, but he knew the feeling and he knew he was looking at it now and not the random stutters of a faulty remote control robot.

They looked alive, that was the thing. Not alive-alive, like people-alive. He could see right into them and he knew they weren’t that kind of alive. But alive like the Chucky-doll in that old movie, plastic-alive, thinking-alive. And like the Chucky-doll, they were also beat-up, broken beyond the point of anything that could really be alive. So they were alive, but they were dead, but they were still alive. And now they were looking at him.

“SURE, FREDDY,” said the bunny, jerking his upper body around even as he tried to keep staring at the back hall where Riley and the others hid. “WHERE’S MY GUITAR?”

“What, is that his?” Trigger asked.

“Yeah. When I was a kid, I thought he was really playing it.”

The bunny had to look down at last and once he had, he bent and picked up the damaged instrument, shifting it into his arms and ready to play in one easy movement. “ANY REQUESTS?” he asked, straightening up and staring hard into the back hallway again.

“Yeah, play _Freebird_!” called Dentist, walking out of the gift shop and switching on his flashlight. 

The bunny laughed, but his eyes slanted down, narrow and angry-looking, as he jerked around to look at Dentist. “YOU GOT IT, LITTLE FRIEND!” he said and his fingers began to move, just like he was really playing. “THAT’S ONE OF MY FAVORITE SONGS!”

“I DON’T THINK I KNOW THIS ONE,” said the duck-thing sharing the stage.

“THAT’S OKAY, CHICA. YOU CAN SIT THIS ONE OUT. I GOT IT.” The bunny finished his silent intro on his stringless guitar as, one by one, everyone came out of hiding into the dining room to watch. And then, in a surprisingly strong voice, the bunny opened up with the first lyrics of an almost-familiar song: “ _If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?_ ”

Dentist and Trigger burst out laughing and Dentist actually turned and gave Wyborn a slap on the back like they were friends. “He did it!” Dentist crowed. “That’s the actual fucking song!”

“Yeah,” Wyborn said without enthusiasm. “He knows a bunch of them.”

“I got to admit,” said Dentist, getting closer to the stage, “I’d have shit myself with excitement if I’d seen something like that as a kid. But as a man, I am a lot more concerned with where the hell is the girl?”

Trigger went over to check the hall again, even shining his light down it, but shook his head. “Maybe she’s not here.”

“Her truck’s here,” Dentist reminded them.

“Maybe she’s down at the quarry.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Dentist watched the bunny, still smiling and even humming along a little as the bunny sang. He laughed again when the bunny hit the solo part and his robot-fingers went crazy hardcore on the broken guitar, but then turned away and waved his knife to get everyone’s attention. “Well, if she shows, she shows. If she doesn’t…let’s get her shit loaded up in the van so we don’t have to worry about it after.”

“After what?” Wyborn asked.

The others just looked at him. Even Slater, although he wasn’t grinning like the others. Neither was Riley. He kind of liked Ana.

“Oh no,” Wyborn said, backing up. “Hell no. I did not sign on for this.”

“You want to leave?” Dentist asked, as if concerned. Trigger snickered.

“Yeah, I want to leave! I want us all to fucking leave!”

Dentist looked at Slater, still frowning, deeply concerned. “Do you want to leave?”

Unlike his friend, Slater seemed to understand at least a little of what was going on. He said nothing.

“Okay,” said Dentist in a pleasant tone that Riley knew well. He walked forward, holding his hands up to show they were empty and everyone was friends right up until he could grab the other man and slam him up against the wall. Then the knife was out and in Dentist’s hand, the blade shiny and very close to Wyborn’s eye. “Are you sure you want to leave?” 

“What…” Wyborn’s voice cracked again. He licked his lips. His fingers shook. Funny how many little details Riley noticed when it wasn’t him. “Whatever you’re thinking, man…”

“What I’m thinking is this. I came all the way out here on a Saturday night when I could be watching fucking fireworks and eating chicken, because someone promised me thousands of fucking dollars were sitting around waiting to be made off a fucking empty building. Then I get here and there’s no scrap left, because Ana fucking Stark took it all. So the way I figure it, that’s as good as stealing from me and the bitch is going to pay it back, every fucking penny.”

“Okay, so take her stuff, man. Take it all, I don’t care. But you can’t…I can’t have no part of this, man.”

“I didn’t hear that,” said Dentist, thumbing back at the stage with his knife. “Rockin’ Rabbit’s getting kind of loud. What’d you say?”

“I said, I can’t do this. You do…You do what you want, but I can’t—”

“Everyone,” said Dentist, “gets a turn.”

Onstage, watching, the duck-thing twitched and said, “IT’S MORE FUN WHEN WE ALL TAKE TURNS!” 

“That’s right, listen to the little lady,” said Dentist when he and Bats and Trigger had stopped laughing. “We all take turns. Everyone gets their DNA right up in the bitch and everyone gets their fingerprints on the knife. That’s the only way to be sure no one bitches the other guys out after, because that’s the only way anyone’s going to get caught here. It’s what you might call an insurance policy. If everyone’s guilty, nobody talks.”

“I’m not going to talk, I swear to God. I’m not going to say anything, but I can’t…I can’t…”

“Well, look, if you can’t, you can’t. I understand this is a difficult decision for you, you being a God-fearing fella, so I’m going to make it real simple. You’re going to hold the bitch down until it’s your turn and then you’re going to stab her a few times and finally, you’re going to help get rid of the body, or I’m going to gut you right here and fuck the hole to warm up on while I wait for the bitch to show. But hey, if you want to go to God with a clear conscience, then I got nothing but respect for that. Hell, I’ll even let you pray first. You want to pray? Is that what you want to do? Speak up, churchie. You in or you out?”

“Oh Jesus.” Wyborn’s wide eyes skittered aside to Slater, who still said nothing. “I’m in,” he whispered.

“You going to fuck that bitch?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Say the magic words, boy.”

“I’m going to fuck that bitch,” Wyborn said in a high, silly voice that was kind of funny until, with embarrassment, Riley realized the other guy was crying.

“Good.” Dentist let him go with a laugh and a slap on the ass. “I love to see two girls getting it on. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with that rabbit?”

Riley turned his attention back to the stage, where the duck was standing, maybe trying to clap her hands, and the rabbit was twisted backwards, shaking at every joint.

“He can hear you,” said Trigger.

“Yeah, right. Getting him all worked up with this sexy talk, huh? Well, tell you what, Bugs. You can watch.”

The bunny fell over, landing with a crash and a shriek of radio feedback on the padded stage floor, but his fingers never stopped moving. He played on, kicking and nodding and still trying to sing through a rising wall of static.

“Yeah, yeah, enough of that shit. Let’s get the van loaded,” Dentist ordered, pushing Wyborn ahead of him. “First we work, then we play.”

# * * *

As six men worked to empty the quiet room, Ana worked alone to empty the Grotto.

The fogger had really done its work, all right, and cleaning the room wouldn’t have taken more than a half-hour if that was all Ana really wanted to do, but she didn’t stop at merely sweeping up the cobwebs and vacuuming the dead spiders. She gathered the sagging sea grass, uprooted the plastic kelp, and disassembled the coral reefs. It all went into a cardboard box, a plastic storage tub, or a plastic bag, but no matter these temporary holdings, she intended it all to go to the same place: the dump trailer in Aunt Easter’s driveway and from there, the landfill in St. George.

Freddy asked once to help, but accepted her firm insistence that she had to do it herself without question and thereafter stood in the doorway with his back to her, satisfying whatever part of his programming demanded he restrict access to the room while granting her a respectful privacy. She was glad of it and gladder still that he was there. Even if she didn’t need help, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be alone. Or whatever ‘alone’ meant when the company she had was a talking robotic teddy bear.

There was a strange catharsis to be found in dismantling the Grotto, so she kept doing it, finding odds and ends of trashy treasures along the way. Strings of paste-pearls and clouded costume jewelry that had once curtained the Grotto now lay in filthy drifts under years of accumulated spider leavings. She found whole schools of fake fish, their sequined scales dulled by time, on the floor where they’d fallen when the collected weight of cobwebs and dust had grown too much for the fragile threads they’d once hung by. She found her glowstick again and threw it away properly. And, tangled in the rubbery tendrils of a giant anemone, she found Frankenstein’s monster.

It was handmade, no longer than her index finger, made by wrapping colored string around snips of wire. Time had muted the palette and the light from her camping lantern paled it further still, but it had been a colorful thing once: purple pants, black belt, purple jacket, green hands, black feet, and a flat black head with green eyeless face. Two bits of wire protruded from the neck, carefully bent into blunt heads, making the final identification for her: Frankenstein’s monster. Another length of wire extended from one leg, making a loop to which had been attached an ordinary keyring. 

Not many keys. A couple standard house locks, one slightly more imposing one with do-not-duplicate etched into it, and one for a Pontiac Grand Prix, but hanging with all the keys was something else, something that looked a bit like an allen wrench, except that its head was weirdly blown out, more like a star with irregular points or maybe a metal flower with a few missing petals. But whatever that was, it was the car key that really intrigued her. That was a pretty nice set of wheels for a town like Mammon.

However…she could think of at least two people who could have easily afforded a car like that. So whose keys were these? Erik Metzger’s or Fredrick Faust’s?

If Faust owned a Grand Prix, she’d have seen Chad roaring it around town. As for Erik, if he’d been missing since Mulholland’s Freddy’s was in operation, what would his keys be doing here? What, was his dead body still driving around Mammon in his rotting Springtrap suit, his animatronic arm cocked out the window and his bunny-ears flapping in the damn breeze? No. Some low-rent Utah fuckwaffle probably bought the key to a wrecked car off eBay. Why anyone would buy a key to a car they couldn’t possibly afford boggled Ana’s mind, but she knew people sold them, so people must be buying them too.

Pointless thing to buy. Pointless thing to keep. Still, even with a garbage box right behind her, Ana didn’t throw them away. She didn’t know why she wanted to keep them, but she didn’t question it either. Maybe it was the little Frankenstein string-doll, which looked a lot like something David had made. He wasn’t much of a fabricator either, but he’d always preferred to make presents over buying them, if only to make Ana—who could never buy them—feel less alone.

So she kept them. The keys tapped together when she put them in her pocket and Ana heard, almost as if in answer, a faint scratching through the pipeshaft in the ceiling. A lone rat survivor, she thought, glancing up into the blackness. She felt a little guilty, but only a little; rats might be one of God’s precious creatures and all that jazz, but they were also disease-carrying, piss-leaking, building-gnawing vermin and anyway, even the largest rat only needed an opening half an inch or so to squeeze through to safety. Mr. Rat would be fine.

Ana went back to work, unscrewing all the stalactites and stalagmites, removing the foam panels on the walls and ceiling, then rolling up the rubber mat before sweeping one last time. She wiped the glass window down with a dry towel, then painted it over with black spray paint. And when the room was empty of all but the body of the mermaid and the echoes of her own footsteps, Ana fired up her torch, braced her shoulder against the mermaid’s rotting chest, and cut through the metal rod that connected it to the contraption in the wall. 

It was heavier than it looked. Ana struggled with it just long enough to realize she was about to drop it, then said, “Help.”

At once, Freddy turned and ducked through the door, crossing the small chamber in just two steps and plucking the heavy doll out of her arms with ease.

“Be careful with her,” said Ana, blushing even as she said it. The mermaid was hardly in pristine condition. A little rough handling more or less made no difference to it at all.

But Freddy moved the mermaid into the crook of his arm instead of letting it hang. “WHERE. DO. YOU. WANT. IT.”

An odd question, considering he’d watched her pull literally everything else out and stack it in the utilities room. But he asked anyway and she was glad he asked, because it helped her find the answer. Everything else was going into the dump trailer and if this was just a rotting wind-up mermaid, she’d be fine with throwing it away like garbage, but it wasn’t. 

It was Aunt Easter. Not the body, but the soul. It was the dream of one lonely little girl, every memory and every might-have-been. It was the uncertain past, finally and forever ready to be buried.

“Just set her down,” she said.

“HERE.”

“Yeah. Right here.”

Freddy backed up and helped Ana lay the mermaid out in the middle of the clean concrete floor. Ana rolled her onto her back, smoothed down her tangled blonde hair as much as possible, and lay her hands together over her torn stomach. And then she cried, because of course she fucking did.

When she was done crying (at least for now; she had a feeling there’d be more to come when she dreamed tonight), Ana got off her knees, picked up her lantern and her welder and said, “All right. Let’s finish this.”

Freddy went out ahead of her and held the door, but when she was through it, he released the wheel and let her be the one to close it. It took a long time and not just because it was heavy and the hinges needed oil. Once it was shut and the wheel was turned as far as she could turn it, she fired up the generator and turned on the welding torch.

The hardest part was starting, but it was one of those jobs that got easier the longer she did it, and then she was done. 

Ana shut off the welder, pushed her goggles up, pulled her mask down, and just stared at it, marveling a little at the intensity of the grief she felt. It was just a door and there was nothing on the other side she really cared about. She knew that in her head. In her heart, this was a grave. Aunt Easter’s, David’s, her own…and still big enough for three hundred and fifty seven missing people and the unreliable memory of one man who wore purple. But the door was closed now. The dead were buried. It was time to get on with her life. 

“You want to say a few words?” she asked, determined to be teasing as she wiped her eyes.

Her shadow slanted as Freddy shifted his gaze from her to the door. He made a soft, uncomfortable sound deep in his speaker, then reached up and took his hat off.

‘Now who taught him to do that?’ Ana wondered, smiling. A small degree of hat etiquette had clearly been made part of Freddy’s programming. She’d seen him on Aunt Easter’s videotapes tipping it whenever he chanced to open a door for a young lady, or especially an older one, but under what circumstances had his programmer thought he’d need to know to take it all the way off as a mark of respect for the dead?

And why had she asked herself that in Mike Schmidt’s voice? She was here to bury the past, not exhume more of it.

Freddy cleared the static from his speaker with a low cough of sound and said, “WE. HAVE. ONLY. A. SHORT. TIME. IN. THIS. LIFE. WITH. THOSE. WE. LOVE.”

Ana laughed, but somehow, she was not surprised. She had not made it very secret that this was, in fact, a funeral. And while it was still a little odd that Freddy had such a contingency in his program, it was perfectly understandable that he’d know to use it now. So she laughed, but then she wiped her eyes and bowed her head and listened.

“IT. CAN. BE. DIFFICULT. WHEN. THAT. TIME. IS. OVER. FOR. THOSE. WHO. REMAIN. TO. LIVE. ON. WITH. ONLY. MEMORIES,” said Freddy, the animatronic bear in a pizza parlor. “MEMORIES. THAT. ARE. BOTH. GOOD. AND. BAD. AND. SOMETIMES. IT. CAN. BE. HARDER. TO. TRUST. THE. GOOD. MEMORIES. BECAUSE. OF. THE. BAD. ONES.”

Ana’s smile faded. She raised her head and looked at him.

He didn’t look back at her. His fingers moved restlessly on the brim of his hat, his thumb rubbing back and forth over the worn velcro tab that kept it on his head when he was wearing it. His eyes were fixed on the door, dimmed by his own thoughts, his own personal pain, as he said, “WE. ALL. FALL. SHORT. OF. THE. GOOD. WE. WANT. FOR. OUR. SELF. AND. WE. ALL. HAVE. TO. SEE. THOSE. WE. LOVE. FALL. SHORT. OF. THE GOOD. WE. WANTED. FOR. THEM.” He was quiet a moment, the stillness broken only by the steady shush-shush of his thumb on velcro and the less-steady huff and wheeze of his cooling system. “IN. THE. END. THE. GREATEST. AND. MOST. DIFFICULT. LESSON. WE. ALL. HAVE. TO. LEARN. IS. FORGIVENESS.” 

“It’s not that I don’t think I can forgive her,” said Ana. “It’s that…I’m not sure if I should. I still love her. That’s the hell of it. I still love her in spite of everything.”

“THEN. LOVE. HER,” Freddy said simply. “IF. THE. WORST. THING. YOU. EVER. DO. IS. LOVE. SOMEONE. FOR. THE. GOOD. PERSON. THEY. TRIED. TO. BE. INSTEAD. OF. THE. HURT. THEY. LEFT. BEHIND. THEN. YOU. ARE. A. MUCH. BETTER. PERSON. THEN. I. AM.”

“It’s not, trust me.” Ana wiped once more at her eyes and found them dry at last. “You know, you don’t say much, but when you do, you are just phenomenally good at it.”

“THANK YOU.” Freddy looked at his hat, sighed, and put it on. “DO. YOU. WANT. TO. BE. ALONE.”

“No.” She looked around—just a utilities room, smelling of old damp concrete and fresh solder—and managed a small, honest smile. “No, I think I’m done. If you want to grab the generator for me, we can get out of here. What time is it?”

“IT’S T-T-TIME TO PARTY-TY-TY—8:08,” he said, bending to lift the 250-pound piece of equipment easily into his arms.

“Still a little daylight. Awesome.” She picked up the welder and the empty oxy-fuel tank, reaching gamefully for the shop-vac as well but not protesting when Freddy took it ahead of her. “Hey, is there a way I can ask that without setting you off?”

“I. DON’T. THINK. SO.”

“Does it bother you?”

“A. LITTLE. BUT. I. CAN. LIVE. WITH. IT.”

“I have a watch,” Ana admitted, holding up her wrist to the light of Freddy’s eyes. “I guess I should get out of last century and get a digital one, huh? Or at least one that lights up.”

“THAT. LOOKS. LIKE. A. MAN’S. WATCH.”

“It is,” Ana agreed, putting her stuff down to shut the utility room door. “Pardon your gender bias for noticing, but yeah. Rider gave it to me. I asked him at the time if he knew the difference between men’s and women’s watches, and he said, yeah, the women’s watches have this moonphase feature to help keep track of their periods.”

“THAT. ISN’T. FUNNY.”

“I’m not a hundred-percent sure he was joking. To Rider, women are a lot like cars; he’s happy to get in ‘em and roll around, but he doesn’t have the first clue how they work. Anyway, I don’t mind,” Ana said, picking up her welder again. “Women’s watchbands break too easy, even on top dollar brands like this one. I’ve only had to replace this band twice in fifteen years.”

“WAS. IT. A. BIRTHDAY. PRESENT.”

She blinked up at him in curious surprise. “Why do you ask?”

He shrugged, steadying the generator with one hand as he jostled it. “ONE. WATCH. FOR. FIFTEEN. YEARS.”

“I could just be a cheap bitch.”

“BUT. YOU’RE. NOT. SO. WAS. IT.”

“No. Me and Rider don’t do birthdays or Christmas or any of that stuff. When he sees something he thinks I want, he just gets it, like this.” She raised the welder slightly and let it drop to her side again. “And he legit hates it when I get him stuff, so I don’t do it at all. No, I’d just gotten out of the hospital and I had these pills I was supposed to take at certain times, but I kept forgetting and he was getting kind of sick of reminding me.” She laughed a little, remembering those early days after the accident. “You think I have a bad memory now, you should have seen me then. There was a good three weeks there when I could forget what movie I was watching _while_ I was watching it, but if you asked who was starring in it, I could rattle off the opening credits, practically verbatim, without any recollection of having seen the actors. Oxygen deprivation is a hell of a thing.”

She could tell he had questions, or more likely, wanted to believe it, but he didn’t go any further down that particular lane. Instead, he said, “WHAT. ELSE. IS. LEFT. TO. DO. TONIGHT.”

“On the roof, you mean?”

“YES.”

“Not much,” she said and ran down her workload for him as they walked together through the Treasure Cave and came out on the upper level of Pirate Cove. Foxy was down onstage behind the curtain, rescuing yet another princess from yet another dragon before sailing off into yet another sunset. All was well in the world.

“What about you?” she concluded as they walked together down the East Hall, past the eternally-waving Peggy Pigtails and on, toward the happy noise of Bonnie and Chica singing _Brewster Rooster Had A Farm._ “You heading straight out on your rounds or what?”

“I. SHOULD. REALLY. SHOW. UP. FOR. ONE. PERFORMANCE.”

“Why? Play hooky for once. What does it hurt to miss them?”

“ME,” he said simply. “BUT. SOME. THINGS. ARE. MORE. IMPORTANT.”

“Like making sure the grounds are clear of thugs and miscreants.”

“AND. YOU.”

“Right. Thugs and miscreants and me.”

“THAT. ISN’T. WHAT. I. MEANT. AND. IT. ISN’T. VERY. FUNNY.”

“Lighten up, Freddy,” she sighed, opening the quiet room door. Her feet took her all the way inside while her eyes were still processing the enormous emptiness of her workshop.

“THERE IS NO BULLYING ALLOWED AT FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZERIA,” he was saying as he set the shop-vac down next to an empty shelf where her toolchest used to be. “DO. YOU. WANT. THIS. BACK. IN. THE. STORE. ROOM.”

“No,” Ana said calmly. “Just set it down over there.”

Freddy grunted, walking all the way into the room to obey while Ana closed the quiet room door.

“Don’t freak out,” she said.

Freddy, setting the generator carefully in the corner, grunted his who-me grunt. “ABOUT. WHAT.”

“I’ve been robbed.”

“WHAT?” Freddy straightened up fast and looked around. “YOU. DIDN’T. DO. THIS.”

“No, I did not. Now listen to me, Freddy. The others sound all right, so hopefully they got what they wanted out of me and got out of here, but on the other hand, Bonnie sounded fine without a face, so until I know what condition everyone’s in, and especially until I know they’re gone, I want you to keep out of sight. Okay?”

Freddy’s ears went up as his brows came down. “NOT. OKAY. I’M. COMING. WITH. YOU.”

“And do what? Offer them a free sample of Funyum pizza sticks? No, seriously, stay here. I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe.”

He looked at her and laughed, then shook his head and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’LL HANDLE THIS,” he said in his hearty Super-Bear voice, then switched over to cut-and-paste to add, “I. KNOW. HOW. TO. HANDLE. A. TRESPASSER.”

“Yeah, obviously you don’t, because I _moved in_ ,” she reminded him. “Freddy, I hate to have to break this to you, but you’re just not that scary.”

One of his eyebrows twitched and he laughed in a Jesus-Christ-really? way. Again, he shook his head. “AN-N-A. THIS. IS. MY. HOUSE. THIS. IS. MY. FAMILY.”

“And this is your job,” Ana said for him and sighed. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”

“IT’S OKAY,” he told her, squeezing her shoulder carefully before dropping his arm.

“No, I mean I’m really sorry.”

And before his ears could come all the way up, they were sagging again as Ana opened his chest panel and he shut down. His speaker let out a distorted grumble of insensible sound as he went dark, but if it was a word, it was impossible now to know what he was trying to tell her.

Oh well. She’d hear plenty when she turned him back on, she was sure. 

Without his eyes, the room was perfectly black. Ana took out her phone and switched it on, just in case she’d missed something, but no. They’d left her the shelves, a few dozen jars of nails and screws, and her worktable. Everything else, every possible weapon, was gone. 

Empty-handed, she opened the door. She listened, stuck her head out and listened harder, then gave Freddy a last silent apology with her eyes, and left him.  
 


	24. Chapter 24

# CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

On the main stage of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, the show went on. Ana walked in the dark, feeling at the wall for guidance and timing her steps to the rhythm of _Brewster Rooster Had A Farm_. Although Bonnie was stuttering several lines behind Chica, she could tell by the way the light of their eyes looked through the plastic that they were both on their feet and facing in the right direction. If they were damaged more than that, she wouldn’t know until she saw them and she couldn’t go charging in to look just yet.

The sun might not be all the way down outside, but here in Freddy’s, the halls were black. The muted flicker of eyelight shining on the plastic illuminated the tiles where the hanging sheets split and no more, but that was a good thing. If she couldn’t see, neither could they. Maybe they thought that put them on even ground, but Ana knew the building far better than they did. If she had to run, she could do it, even blind. If she had to fight, she could do that too. But until she knew if they were still here and how many they were, she couldn’t do anything. If, how many, where…those were the questions, but not who. Mammon wasn’t big enough to have more than one bad element. Mason Kellar was out there, in the flesh or by proxy, and that was all the who she needed to know.

In the dining room, the song ended, first with Chica, a few seconds later with Bonnie, and then it was quiet. Too quiet; Freddy must have a few lines here. Ana waited, her ears throbbing in the silence, and finally the joke segment started, with Chica giving ditzy answers to questions Freddy wasn’t even there to ask.

Guilt brushed at Ana’s heart, no heavier than her own fingers brushing at the wall. Freddy was fine. He’d be pissed when she turned him back on, but he was fine. He was a whole lot better where he was in the quiet room than out here with her, blundering ahead to greet the ‘guests’ she had no damn doubt were lying in wait for her. He wouldn’t see it that way, of course, and he’d probably never completely trust her again, but that would only be a problem if she lived through this and turned him back on. Right now, she just couldn’t think about it.

Step by silent step, Ana reached the end of the hall and stopped just on the other side of the plastic. Two pairs of animatronic eyes didn’t do much to light a room this size, but after the perfect blackness of the hall, they were as good as searchlights. Ana’s sugar-skull tee was a beacon; her sweaty skin all but glowed. If they were watching this doorway, there would be no way to avoid letting herself be seen when she came through, no matter how quietly she did it.

She moved to one side, hunkered low, found an edge along one of the hanging sheets and peeled it back just a crack. She studied the room beyond like it was new territory, a potential battlefield. The kitchen was just to her left, closed off by more plastic; a good ambush spot. In the back of the room, in the little hall that ran between the playground and the gym was another hiding place. Her bedroom under the curtained table, another one. 

Those were the possibilities. As for the certainties, there were long shadows that shouldn’t be there on what she could see of the lobby floor and movement behind the dirty glass set in the West Hall door. So two at least. No, three. The gift shop door she’d left wide open was now almost closed and when Chica’s head turned that way, she could make out the pale blur of a watchful face, framed by scraggly hair and an unkempt trailer-trash beard. She knew him. What was his name? Trey? Trig. Trigger-Man. One of Mason’s distributers. So. 

She could also see some familiar crates and her big toolchest over by the cashier’s station in the open end of the lobby. They hadn’t been able to fit all her stuff into whatever car they’d brought, so they’d had to prioritize, taking most of her big-ticket equipment, but leaving most of the tools. That was good. If she could get to them, she’d have a weapon, which was of course why they left it there, where the little light coming through the open lobby doors would have to shine on it even if Bonnie and Chica’s eyes were off. They were trying to draw her out.

Ana gave the Better Idea Fairy a full minute to show up, but the bitch must have gotten stuck in traffic, so she shifted onto the balls of her feet and took a deep breath.

“LET’S ROCK!” said Bonnie.

‘Yes, let’s,’ thought Ana and burst through the plastic at a run.

She startled them, but they didn’t stay startled. The plastic covering the kitchen doorway bulged and crackled as someone got tangled up in it. She heard swearing, caught movement all around her. The next few seconds came to her as a series of gifs, disconnected from the stream of reality, giving her all the time in the world to identify the players: The man hiding in her bed leapt up, heaving the table over on its side—Jesus Christ, was that _Wyborn_?! And that was Slater, charging through the West Hall door and colliding with…with…with that little laughing idiot who hung out with Jack. Riley! That was his name. And that was Batshit-Crazy Campbell hip-sliding over the cashier’s station, whooping and laughing. And one behind her, that made six, an even mixture of Mason’s boys, Jack’s, and of all people, Shelly’s. The story behind the forming of this motley band must be a good one, but she’d never get to hear it. She was pinned in. There was no escape.

Escape had never been her plan.

Ana ran straight for her tools, only to cut aside halfway there and leap without warning onto the stage directly in front of Bonnie. He jerked around to face her, twitching and laughing, and blatted out, “IT’S GREAT TO SEE YOU LITTLE FRIEND, BUT PLEASE—”

She seized his guitar, yanked it out of his hands and spun, swinging all the way from her heels and hitting Bats, just climbing onto the stage behind her, hard enough to send him sprawling. At first, she thought the crunch she heard was a skull breaking, but it was a neck—the guitar’s.

“—DON’T INTERRUPT THE BAND DURING A PERFORMANCE,” Bonnie prattled on, resuming his playing pose on nothing but air as Ana jumped down, stabbing what was left of her improvised weapon into Trigger’s shoulder and twisting. It didn’t look like it went too deep, if it penetrated at all, but he sure felt it.

“UH-OH!” Chica chirped. “DON’T FIGHT, KIDS! IF YOU CAN’T SETTLE DOWN, YOU MAY BE ASKED TO LEAVE.”

“Get her!” the man from the kitchen yelled, keeping his distance. She knew him too, one of Mason’s, the one with the nice teeth. Dentist. “Godammit, how many of you does it take? You! Whatever your fucking name is, fucking grab her!”

Slater picked himself off of Riley and made the world’s most half-hearted lunge toward Ana, who sent him back with a side-kick to the stomach. Slater dropped to his knees, retching and gasping, but this momentary distraction was enough for Trigger, who slapped the guitar neck away and punched Ana in the face.

She saw it coming and rolled with it as much as she could, but it knocked her back and before her senses cleared, he had her and yanked her against him in an inexpert head-lock. His fingernails scraped at her scalp. His arm, scrawny-strong after the manner of young men just beginning to tip from recreational meth use to junkie, locked around her throat with bruising force. His hips bumped her ass as they jostled together, once by accident and then again to let her know what was coming.

Ana did not struggle. What she did was reach back and sink her fingernails into Trigger’s ears and pull. At the same time, she stomped hard on his foot and twisted until she both heard and felt the pop of dislocated toes even over his howls of pain. His grip relaxed; she pulled forward only to throw her head back with a nose-breaking crunch. He did not release her then as much as throw her, but however it happened, she got away from him.

She sprinted for Slater—neither he nor Wyborn seemed too eager to get in on the action and if she was going to whittle the odds down, she’d better start with the weakest—but before she’d made it two running steps, someone caught her by the braid. Her head snapped back, giving her a brief glimpse of upside-down Bats grinning at her before he swung her around and bounced her shoulder off the wall next to the stage. Dumbass. She punched him in the throat to make him let go, then grabbed him by the hair and showed him how to do it right, banging him face-first into the wall three times in rapid succession and leaving a Rorschach blob of blood behind in the shape of either a butterfly or a uterus depending on one’s psychological temperament before Riley body-slammed her from the side. 

They fell onto the stage together, practically at Bonnie’s feet, who warned them again not to interrupt the performance. Riley, skinny as he was, nevertheless grappled his way on top of Ana, which seemed to surprise him. Eager to press his advantage, clearly unsure how, he knotted both hands around her neck and throttled her cartoon-style, picking her slightly up and thumping her down again. The stage was thickly padded, protection against heavy animatronic feet; except for having this idiot’s knee in her kidney, it didn’t hurt. At the first opening, she got a hand up between them, plugged two fingers into his nose and gave it a wrench. 

Riley screamed, sending a spray of blood in a wide arc across Bonnie’s knees as he scrambled back, and Ana planted a boot in his balls and heaved him clear off the stage and onto the floor. His head connected with the tiles there with a comically hollow-sounding _POK_ and his mouth clopped shut. He rolled dazedly onto his side, cupped a hand and spat the tip of his own tongue into his palm. He stared at it, drooling blood, then put it into his pocket as he tried to crawl away.

“Enough of this shit,” Dentist snarled, stalking over to the boxes of tools. He reached inside, came out with Ana’s nail-gun. He aimed it at her as she sat slowly up, saying, “You want to go out of this life as a fucking pincushion, bitch, you just keep it up. I can put one of these between your eyes from here.”

Someone had been watching too many toolbox murder movies. Dentist had been one of the guys assigned to watch Ana remodel the Kellar house and allegedly learn how to use simple tools. How had he managed to do that for five weeks without learning that a pneumatic nailer wouldn’t fire without an air compressor attached? Let alone no pressure on the contact-trip.

“That’s not—” Slater said and stopped right there. He looked at Ana.

Ana looked narrowly back at him.

Onstage, Chica told her half of a joke while Bonnie convulsively laughed and stuttered.

“That’s not necessary,” Slater said after an awkward pause. “Let’s just…everybody calm down.”

“Calm down, my ass,” snarled Dentist. “Get the bitch on the ground!”

Slater looked at Ana again.

“Boy, you better get your thumb out and do something,” Dentist warned.

Ana nodded, holding Slater’s reluctant gaze. “One way or the other,” she said.

He looked at her, at Riley on the floor, at Wyborn inching his way across the room, at Trigger pulling his knife out, and back at her. While he was thinking about it, Wyborn ran, tripping over his own feet as he bolted for the lobby.

Dentist roared and pivoted to fire after him, gaping in amazement at the muzzle of the nailer when it failed to deliver a barrage of projectiles on cue. Ana ran too, not to follow Wyborn out of the building, but to grab the nail-gun, twisting it against Dentist’s grip until one of his fingers popped up at an unnatural angle. She yanked it from him as he yelled, then smashed it into his mouth. He doubled over, both hands raised, blood and teeth vomiting between his broken fingers, and Ana hit him again, this time in the back of the head. 

He dropped—not out, maybe, but down—and Ana threw the nail-gun aside and grabbed a handsaw from the crate instead. Seizing a fistful of Dentist’s greasy hair, she yanked his head back and put the saw’s blade right up to his neck. “You better be faster than I am,” she told Trigger as he shifted his weight to rush her.

It was a risk. Mason’s boys had not impressed her as being particularly loyal to anyone but Mason himself, and even that seemed dependent upon a steady inflow of cash, drugs and entertainment. However, Dentist’s harsh breaths and wet groans were regularly punctuated by profanities, which meant he was conscious and would likely remember Trigger’s next move if they got out of this, which they no doubt assumed they would. She was one person; they were six—five now. How the hell else could this possibly play out?

After a long moment, Trigger took one step back. A token withdrawal, far from surrender. “Real scary,” he said. “It’s not even plugged in.”

“It’s cordless, idiot.” Ana moved the saw just a little and turned it on. 

Everyone jumped, but no one harder than Dentist. Ana had to put a knee in his back to stop him struggling, then held the saw right up to his face so he could watch the spinning blade come to a stop.

“Okay, okay.” Trigger backed up some more, hooked a wallet out—Ana’s—and threw it down. “We’re leaving. Jesus Christ. Let him go.”

“No one’s going anywhere. I said no one,” she interrupted herself loudly, freezing Slater in his tracks as he took a step toward the lobby. “Who brought the car?”

Heads turned.

“I did,” Bats admitted, his expression one of petulant frustration.

“Give the keys to Riley,” Ana ordered. “Riley, I want everything you guys took back in this building, you hear me? You hold back one dollar, one bag of bolts or one pair of panties and I will feed you this thing.”

Riley nodded, scrambling eagerly to work as Dentist cursed and threw a wadded pair of Ana’s panties down on the floor beside her.

“The rest of you, get over there and lie down. You got weapons or phones, you drop them right now.”

Slater shuffled back, but Trigger just said, “Or what?”

Ana huffed out a laugh. “Try me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Big badass Stark, but seriously. What are you going to do?” Trigger took a step toward her, the knife moving in broad sweeps, wanting her to see it. “You can’t kill us all.”

Ana didn’t break her gaze. “I’m pretty sure I can, actually. And when I do, you are going to find out in a fucking hurry why you do not bring a pocketknife to a power tool fight.”

Trigger frowned and glanced at the boxes of tools.

“Yeah, I’m sure you will,” Ana said, just like he’d announced his intention out loud. “But they’re not all cordless and the ones that are don’t all have a battery in at the moment. I’ll get you before you find something in there you can use on me. And I don’t have to kill you. It’s not like the movies where the girl gets all cut up but she still runs out of the house and down the road all the way to town. In real life, you take a handsaw to the leg or the back or anywhere at all, in fact, and you’re not going anywhere. Even if you make it outside, I’ll see to it that you’re in no condition to get very fucking far. And there is all kinds of noise going on out there, so scream all you want when I catch you. I’ll understand. You’re about to be dismembered by a fucking handsaw. It’s going to hurt.”

Dentist sucked in a breath, spat blood, and snapped, “Stop fucking around and do what the bitch says!”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” said Ana, pushing the blade a little deeper into the folds of his blotchy neck-skin. “But this thing will turn you into a fucking Pez dispenser in less than two seconds, so watch who you’re calling names, bitch. Slater, I swear to God, if you take another step toward that door, I will open you from your nuts to your neck.”

Slater backed up fast, hands up like he thought he was being arrested. “Oh come on!” he pleaded. “Don’t do this. I’ve got a kid! Stark, come on! Ana!”

“Don’t you fucking ‘Ana’ me,” she snapped. “You picked the wrong horse to bet on, bitch. Lie down.”

“I didn’t know what they were gonna do!” Slater’s voice cracked. He flinched, hearing it, then broke down and started crying. “Please, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone!”

“‘Get her on the ground,’ and you didn’t know what that meant?” she shot back. “You knew what they were going to do. You were ready to be a part of it. Well, now you’re a part of this. Whether you die easy or hard is the only choice you get to make anymore. Pick one and either get to running or lie the fuck down.”

Slater was face-down before she finished talking. The others took longer, but they did it. Ana watched, her eyes darting from one to the other…and then to Bonnie.

She had never exactly been unaware of him. That big Texas laugh he hated so much had made for a fittingly manic soundtrack during the worst of the fighting, as well as reassuring her that he was still there and still functioning. But now she saw him, really saw him…and saw that he was really seeing her, too. 

She only felt the cold steel of murder in her when it opened its grip and left her. Her heart lurched and raced, flooding her face with heat and her knees with water. She dropped her eyes, and saw the saw in her hand, her knuckles white with strain and pink with early bruises. A thin crust of blood was drying on her thumbnail where it had trickled down from a shallow scratch on Trigger-Man’s neck. There was still a little sawdust sticking to the blade from when she’d cut lumber with it earlier today.

“YOU LOOK PRETTY TODAY, CHICA!” Bonnie said, ears jittering as he tried to look back at her while his head turned toward his animatronic partner.

“THANKS,” Chica twittered, patting at her head. “I JUST HAD MY FEATHERS DONE! I WAS REALLY NERVOUS, TOO, BECAUSE THE STYLISTS WERE ALL RABBITS.”

“WELL, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?” Bonnie asked. “IT WAS A HARE SALON.”

And the show went on.

“We gonna lie here all night?” Trigger asked.

“No.” Ana glanced at Bonnie again and looked away. “Not for too much longer.”

Slater’s hoarse tears, which had slackened over the last few minutes, came back with a vengeance. Bats hissed at him to shut up, which only made it worse. “Please don’t kill me,” he moaned. “Please, I swear to God, I won’t tell anyone. I’ve got a kid!”

Ana threw him an irritated glance. “You keep saying that. You can survive not having a father, you know. I did, and I turned out just great, didn’t I?”

Slater did not say a word. 

“That was a joke, jackhat,” she said crossly, then looked down at the saw in her hand, the blood drying on her thumbnail. “I know how I turned out.”

“Ana?” 

Ana looked around as Riley, empty-handed, eased into the room. “Yeah?”

“I’m done.”

So here it was. She knew the next step here was to tell Riley to go into the back storeroom and bring her some tarps off the bottom shelf on the left, but she didn’t. Not because she thought he’d run—Riley was a good dog, no matter whose hand was on the leash—but because she knew the others would scatter just as soon as the saw cut into meat. Despite her earlier claims to the contrary, she knew she couldn’t really chase down four men running in four different directions, and if she couldn’t get them all, she might as well cut her own throat and rob Mason of the satisfaction. Even if she turned them all loose this instant, enough damage had been done, to his reputation if nothing else, to set Mason gunning for her.

Her mind raced, testing possibilities, but she honestly couldn’t see any way she was coming out of this alive unless she ran back to California to hide under Rider’s skirt while he mopped up. That meant leaving town. Leave the job she’d only just gotten back. Leave her aunt’s house to decay. Leave the life she’d started building still half in boxes.

Oh, who was she kidding? Leave Freddy’s. Leave _this_ house, _this_ life. Leave Bonnie.

‘He’s not real,’ she told herself brutally. ‘He’s an illusion, a daydream. His good opinion of you is about as sincere as an insurance company Christmas card. It is not worth dying for.’ 

The playful banter on stage went on and on. What do you call a funny chicken? A comedi-hen. What do you call a cool rabbit? A hip hopper. What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear. 

“All right,” said Ana. “Listen up, because there’s going to be a short quiz at the end of the lecture and it is strictly pass or fail. You hear me?”

They heard her. Loud and clear.

“I know who you are,” she said. “I know who you work for. I strongly suspect, however, that he did not sign off on tonight’s little party. Would you like to know why that is? That is because he knows who I work for, and no, I don’t mean Shelton Contractors.”

“Man, shut the fuck up!” Bats snarled as Slater buried his face in his arms and shook with sobs.

“I believe Mason will kill me if he finds out I beat up his boys,” Ana went on calmly. “He may be a two-bit meth-head motherfucker, but he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty when he thinks he’s been disrespected, so I am absolutely convinced he will hunt me out in this very small town and maybe shoot me, maybe stab me, maybe beat me to death with a hammer just as soon as he learns what went down here tonight. So I have zero incentive to let any of you live. You understand that.”

None of them agreed, but in their silence, she read their understanding.

“On the other hand, if I kill you, I’m not a hundred percent sure he won’t come hunting me down anyway. It’s a small town. Who the hell else would dare to piss on his fence except me? And the reason I would fall under suspicion so immediately without any kind of evidence is because Rider set me up to work with him a while back. You remember that. And you remember that it ended badly. But the reason it did not end badly enough that I died is because Rider only shoots, stabs and bludgeons those people he is not interested in making a point over. And I guarantee that if Rider has to put his business on hold in California and come all the way out here to avenge my sorry ass, he will be making one hell of a point. Frankly, I’m kind of glad I’ll be dead by then, because that shitshow, I do not need to see again. The last guy who Rider thought was pissing on his fence was drawn and quartered. Do you know what that means?”

Riley shook his head, the only one to give any kind of answer, so Ana directed herself to him and said, gently, “Each of his arms and legs were tied to a car. His stomach was cut open. His intestines were wrapped around some barbed wire and pulled out, slowly, and burned on a hibachi in front of him. When they were all burned, the guys driving those cars put their feet on the gas and they pulled his arms and legs off. He bled to death. It took almost two whole minutes after the quartering. You want to know what two minutes feels like?”

She waited.

Slater cried. 

Bonnie and Chica told jokes.

“That’s two minutes,” said Ana to a wide-eyed, open-mouthed Riley. “When he was dead, Rider cut the man’s head off, put it on a legit spike, and sent it to the guy the man was working for. You see, some people watch movies like Saw and get sick. Rider watches that shit and gets inspired. He’s always looking for a good reason to try shit like that out. And I, gentlemen, would be a very good reason. So.” She swept her gaze across them, avoiding the stage and the sight of Bonnie, watching Bonnie, listening Bonnie. “I understand that I will probably die because of what I did here tonight. And you understand that, even if by some miracle you get away from me tonight and watch me die, that will not save you. And we understand each other, right?”

Still no answers, no movement.

“Right?” Ana asked patiently.

They nodded, even Dentist, who cut himself in the process.

“Okay. Good. So here’s your first and final quiz question.” She looked down at Dentist, since he seemed to be the brains of the group. “What the hell happened to you?”

Without hesitation, Dentist said, “I got stupid setting off fireworks and fell on the fucking sidewalk. Broke my fucking teeth out on the fucking curb.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s the Fourth. Hospitals are full of fuckheads like me tonight.”

“That’s what you’re going to tell the doctor, huh?”

“Yeah. I swear.”

“And that’s what you’re going to tell Mason?”

“Yeah. He’ll probably laugh his ass off.”

Ana looked at Trigger. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Went out drinking at the park and tripped on the stairs.”

“And you?” she said, looking at Bats. “What happened to you?”

“Fuck if I know, I was high.”

“And that’s what you’re going to tell Mason?”

“Mason don’t give a shit about me. But yeah, whatever. If he asks, sure.”

Ana looked at Riley. “What are you going to tell him?”

“Some guys beat me up,” this prize replied eagerly. “But I didn’t see their faces! They were wearing masks! Like ninjas!”

Both Ana and Dentist said, “Oh Jesus Christ, Riley,” in perfect unison.

“Look, _I’ll_ beat him up,” Dentist said impatiently. “I’ll do it right in front of Mace if you want, and he still won’t even notice. That good enough?”

Ana looked at them, then at Bonnie. For a long time, it was just the two of them. Then she released her grip on Dentist’s hair and took the saw away from his neck. “Go on,” she said. “But just so you know, Rider _is_ going to hear about this and the word he’s going to hear is that I handled it to my satisfaction. If that word changes or if it turns out by some unfortunate circumstance to be the last word he ever hears from me, he’ll come for you. Understand that very well. If you kill me or, hell, if I get hit by a car, slip in the tub or get abducted by aliens, Rider will still come and he’ll come for you. And when he does, Mason Kellar will not protect you. He will, in fact, probably serve up your nuts on a silver platter if he thinks that will save him. And most of all, understand that of the many times I have seen Rider take a man’s nuts off, I have never seen him do it with something as simple and relatively painless as a knife. In fact, the last time I personally saw it, he dipped the guy’s scrote in a bowl of rock salt and icewater until it froze solid and then broke it off with a fucking hammer. That, gentlemen, is who you are really dealing with. Not me and not Mason. _Rider_.” 

Five men stared.

“Go on, get out of here,” Ana sighed, knowing damn well they’d be back, no matter what she told them or how sincerely they believed it. Sooner or later, they’d be back.

They left fast and only Riley glanced back. “Sorry,” he said, like he’d spilled soda on her couch, and then even he was gone. 

In the parking lot, an engine roared and tires screamed. In the quarry, fireworks popped like gunshots. In Freddy’s, Bonnie twitched and laughed, the sound distorted, stretched low and full of static.

Ana couldn’t look at him. She left to go turn Freddy back on. After that, well, she might as well lock down as best she could and start some strong coffee brewing. It was going to be a long night.


	25. Chapter 25

# CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The show went on, without an audience, without Freddy, without even a guitar. Bonnie watched Ana leave, listened to her footsteps recede and then return. She picked up her wallet and a few tools, opened and closed drawers on her toolchest, found her shoebox and fingered the money inside, then let it all lie and went away again. Bonnie heard the loading dock door rattle open and shut. His imaginary heart lurched and his fan revved, but then he heard her boots on the roof. A few seconds later, he heard metal feet running in the hall and Foxy shouldered through the plastic, sword drawn. 

Bonnie’s ears slapped flat involuntarily and came jittering up again. Foxy glanced at him as he looked around the room and his own ears twitched, but he didn’t say anything. What was there to say anyway? At this point, even the thought of an apology made Bonnie want to punch the muzzle right off Foxy’s face, not that he’d ever hear one.

His temper flared and his vision dimmed, but Bonnie managed to fight it back for now. He had to stay calm, for Ana. He couldn’t go black tonight. She needed him. 

More footsteps and here came Freddy. Bonnie’s vision dimmed again, darker. Freddy did not look at him but raised a hand in typically uncaring acknowledgement of Bonnie’s feelings while he finished inspecting the room. Ana’s upended table. Scattered splatters of blood. Her panties lying in the middle of the floor. Slowly, his arm lowered. Now he looked at the stage. “BONNIE. CHICA. WAKE UP. THAT’S AN ORDER. BONNIE. TALK. TO. ME. THAT’S AN ORDER.”

Red light flickered across the edges of Bonnie’s perceptions, registering the errors associated with breaking his routine too soon. For a moment, he thought he was going black after all, but his sight cleared and he came out of it, slower than Chica maybe, but still on his own. Holding his head—it felt weird, stuffy almost, not that he could possibly know what that felt like—Bonnie staggered to the nearest wall and leaned into it, stepping on pieces of his guitar on the way. “Where th-th-the hell were you?” he demanded, shivering.

“I’M. SORRY. BONNIE. SHE. OPENED. ME.” 

There were no good excuses, but that was probably as good as they got. Bonnie, still tremoring, managed a nod and then turned his glare on Foxy. “I’m a jealous ass, huh? I t-t-tried to tell you, but-t-t I’m just a jealous ass and you ignored-d-d me. I needed you. The one fucking t-t-t—TIME TO ROCK—time in my life when I actually-ly-ly needed you.”

Foxy looked back at him, servos whining without visible movement. He said nothing. No apology, no excuse, nothing.

“I’M. SORRY,” Freddy said again. He looked at the panties and his eyes fluxed, blue and black.

“That’s nothing-ing-ing,” Bonnie muttered, rubbing his head like that could help clear it. “One of them had those in his pocket. He must-t-t have wanted to make sure he got a souvenir.”

“One of them?” Foxy echoed. “How many were there?”

Bonnie looked up at him. 

The next thing he knew, red light snapped on in a broad stripe, blinding-bright. Bonnie recoiled, startled and confused, and hit the back of his head, both ears and one hand on something unyielding. At the impact, the red light flared brighter and no matter how he turned his head, it stayed right in front of him.

“What the hell is that-t-t?” he asked. The echoes were strange, too close. He started to ask Freddy what was going on, but Freddy’s eyes were gone. So were Foxy’s and Chica’s…and his own. The room was black, except for this annoying bar of red light shining in his face. 

Wait, that wasn’t a light shining at him at all, that was an internal line of text. Error messages, so many that they formed an unreadable red bar across his vision.

He cleared his error log—that helped, at least enough that he could now tell he was looking at a dozen overlapping lines of text—and switched on his eyes.

What he saw made no immediate sense: A blotchy grey wall about ten feet away with a recessed light bulb in a wire cage set in the middle of it. Except that wasn’t a wall, he realized. It was a ceiling. It was the freezer’s ceiling. And he wasn’t standing, he was lying on his back. How had he not known that? Was his…? His equilibrium gauge was shut down. It took a hell of a hard knock to the head to do that. 

Bonnie turned it on again and while it ran its start-up diagnostic, he went through the ever-expanding list of overrides. Yes, he knew he had 118 non-responsive pressure plates. Yes, he knew his overall structural integrity was at 77%. Yes, he knew his audio system needed maintenance. Everything about him needed fucking maintenance.

At last, he cleared the last message and sat up. What time was it…? 2:38 in the morning?!

He’d gone black? He knew he’d been upset and he guessed he knew what had set him off, but there’d been no sense of slippage. Even now, seeing where he was, he found it hard to believe that he could just snap, with no warning, no fight, just one second there and the next…well, five hours later in the freezer. He never would have let himself go black like that. The whole time those guys had been talking, Bonnie had known not to let himself go, because in the black, Ana would be just another target to him. If he could keep calm listening to those sons of bitches make plans and watching the brutally lop-sided fight that followed, he could surely keep calm now that it was over. Hell, all Foxy had done was ask how many there’d been.

Six. There’d been six.

Bonnie waited, tense and apprehensive, but his internal clock ticked away like normal. He was fine.

Maybe…Maybe Foxy had said something else, something he couldn’t remember now. That was a new development, losing memory before going black, but as scary as that was, it was far scarier to think he could go black so utterly without warning, so that was what he preferred to believe. Right now, however, there were other things to worry about.

With the help of some sturdy wire shelves, Bonnie pulled himself up on his feet and limped over to the door. He knocked three times, the usual signal that he was lucid and ready to come out. He waited two minutes and knocked again. This part could take a while, but Freddy’s patrols brought him through the kitchen every half hour or so. It wouldn’t be too long before—

“HI BONNIE!”

“HI CHICA!” Bonnie replied, ramping up the volume. She hadn’t sounded very close, still out the dining room maybe. He listened and soon heard her footsteps. “I guess I lost it,” he said through the door. “Did-d-d I hurt anyone?”

“NO,” said Chica, but not right away. The door rattled as she pulled the locking pin from the latch and opened it. She offered him a smile; her eyes were wary.

“What did-d-d I do?” he asked, his ears lowering. “I didn’t g-g-go after you, did I?”

Stupid question. When they were in the black, they’d go after anything that moved.

He could see Chica struggling to find some cheerful, convincing assurance and the longer it took, the less convincing it could ever be.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He started to reach for her, became uncomfortably aware of how much that looked like a lunge, and let his arms awkwardly fall. “I d-d-don’t know what happened.”

Chica toddled forward and hugged him.

“I mean it,” he said softly. His speaker crackled, a tremor of fear coming through as static. “I don’t know what-t-t happened. It wasn’t a fight-t-t. I was fine…and then I was g-g-gone.”

“YOU’RE OKAY.”

“What if it happens again? What if—” He didn’t want to say it, but he couldn’t stop. “What if this is it, Chic-c-c—CHICA THE LITTLE CHICKEN! It’s happening more and more often lately-ly-ly and lasting longer. This time, it was five hours. Five hours over nothing-ing-ing! What if…What if I don’t c-c-come out of it at all next time?”

In his mind, the fear was even bigger. He saw himself with Ana, his arms around her, her face close…and his eyes blinking to black.

“DON’T BE SCARED,” said Chica. Her hand reached up, her fingers rasping through the brittle fur that flocked the back of his head. He couldn’t feel it, but he knew the touch. “EVERYTHING IS ALL RIGHT NOW.”

And although it had been years, that soft familiar sound brought it all rushing back: Him and Chica behind the curtain down in the theater, squeezed together on that tiny stage. Talking. Touching. Trying to come together closer than these clumsy bodies allowed…

“YOU’RE OKAY,” she told him now and drew back to show him a smile. “LET’S GIVE OUR SPECIAL GUEST A BIG FAZBEAR WELCOME!”

“She’s still here?” Bonnie’s leaping heart twisted in on itself and fell almost immediately. “Did she…hear me?”

Chica hesitated, then nodded.

“Oh God.” Bonnie clapped both hands over his eyes, fighting the overwhelming urge to just step back into the freezer and pull the door shut.

“IT’S OKAY,” Chica told him, pulling gently at his arm. “YOUR FRIENDS WILL ALWAYS UNDERSTAND. EVERYONE HAS BAD DAYS SOMETIMES.”

“Yeah, but why d-d-do we all have to have one on the same d-d-damn day?” Sighing, Bonnie let his arms drop and turned around. “Get my b-b-back, would you?”

After Chica helped him brush off the chunks of desiccated nastiness that he’d picked up raging in the freezer, Bonnie limped over to the doorway and peeked into the dining room. Empty, but Ana had been there, at least long enough to clear her tools away and wipe up the blood. She’d left the table upended, though, and her bed stuff where the man hiding there had left it loosely scattered. 

“Where is she?” he asked.

“GOSH, THAT’S A GOOD QUESTION. WHY DON’T YOU GO ASK TUX? I’M SURE HE COULD HELP YOU FIND THE ANSWER.”

Translation: She was in the West Hall by the exit, a vantage point Bonnie knew well. No one could drive up to the top of the bluff without being seen if someone was watching that corner of the lot from that door.

“Thanks.” Bonnie headed out, but stopped halfway across the dining room and looked back. “Thanks,” he said again. “I d-d-don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“ME NEITHER,” she retorted and waddled away, not to the arcade, which was her usual nighttime haunt, but to the gym. Watching the road, no doubt at Freddy’s order. That meant Freddy thought the guys were coming back.

Of course, Freddy always thought they were under the threat of imminent attack, so that was nothing new. Tonight’s misadventures were just giving him a better reason than he usually had to be paranoid and boss everyone around. He’d be impossible to deal with for a few days, grouchy for a few more, and then he’d finally relax. Well, as relaxed as Freddy ever got.

So thinking (it helped his peace of mind immeasurably to pretend Freddy’s vigilance stemmed from his own neurotic nature and not as a sensible response to a very real threat), Bonnie put a hand on the West Hall door. He pulled it open an inch, heard Freddy say, “AN-N-A,” and stopped there, switching off his eyes without even thinking about it. It wasn’t that he wanted to eavesdrop, which he knew was rude and wrong and all that; he just wanted to give the two of them some privacy and maybe listen in a little. It wasn’t eavesdropping, it was…keeping informed.

“Hey Freddy,” he heard Ana say, without much feeling. Easing the door open, Bonnie leaned in and stole a peek around the corner just in time to catch a glimpse of her—shoulders slumped and neck bent, before Freddy stepped up to join her at the door and block her from view.

“HELLO. AGAIN,” Freddy said, leaning over slightly to find a gap between the boards that covered the windows. “ARE. YOU. DOWN. FOR. GOOD. THIS. TIME.”

“No. I’m just making a list of stuff to get tomorrow and wanted some measurements. I’m going right up back as soon as I’m done.”

“I. WISH. YOU. WOULDN’T. IT’S. LATE.”

“Technically, it’s early.”

“GET. SOME. SLEEP.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“THAT’S. NOT. FUNNY.”

“It wasn’t a joke. Anyway, I had a whole pot of coffee with a Redline chaser. I’m not sleeping anytime soon, even if I wanted to. But you don’t have to worry about me. I promise I won’t spend the whole night staring at the road from this window.”

“NO. YOU’LL. SPEND. IT. WATCHING. THE. ROAD. FROM. THE. WOOF,” said Freddy with a hint of dry humor. “DON’T. TRY. THAT. DOUBLE. TALK. ON. ME. AN-N-A. I. WASN’T. BUILT. YESTERDAY.”

“I’m fine.”

“HARDLY. AND. YOU. WILL. BE. LESS. FINE. EVERY. HOUR. UNTIL. MORNING. WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?” Freddy asked, affecting only idle curiosity as he scanned the parking lot. “WHAT. CAN. YOU. DO. THAT. WILL. HELP. MORE. THAN. A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP.”

“Maybe nothing, but my death is a pretty big part of my life. I’d hate to sleep through it.”

“STILL. NOT. FUNNY,” Freddy remarked.

“Still not a joke. But all right. What can I do? Just what I’m doing, bear. Keeping watch and making plans. Not a hell of a lot else to do until the stores open, but on the bright side, pulling an all-nighter means I’ll be able to get some more work done on the roof, which is nice, since I won’t have quite as much time as I thought I would tomorrow. Or later today, I mean. Whatever.”

“I’M. GLAD. YOU’RE. TAKING. THIS. SO. SERIOUSLY.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not, but I am, you know. And believe me, I am even as we speak re-evaluating the life choices that have led me to this moment.”

“AND.”

“And I have identified a very small number of rather large errors, most notably the one about—” Her pale hand appeared as she raised her wristwatch to the light of Freddy’s eyes, then fell away again. “—six hours ago.”

Freddy glanced tolerantly in her direction, then raised an arm and presumably patted her on the head. “I. FORGIVE. YOU.”

“What? For what?”

“WHAT. DO. YOU. MEAN. FOR. WHAT. FOR. SHUTTING. ME. DOWN. AND LEAVING. ME. IN. THE. QUIET. ROOM.”

“Oh. Okay, that’s…nice, but that’s not the mistake I was referring to.”

“IT. BETTER. HAVE. AT. LEAST. MADE. YOUR. LIST. BECAUSE. IT’S. RIGHT. AT. THE. TOP. OF. MINE.”

Ana did not answer right away and when she did speak, it was with quiet resignation. “You don’t have to joke about it. I know you’re mad. Just yell at me already. I’m tired of waiting for it.”

“I’M. NOT. MAD. AT. YOU.”

“Yes, you are.”

“NO. I’M. NOT. IN. FACT. I. THOUGHT. WE. HAD. A. PRETTY. GOOD. DAY. YOU. AND. I,” he added in a musing tone. “I. CAN’T. SAY. WE. HAD. FUN. BUT. I’M. GLAD. WE. HAD. THE. TIME. WE. HAD. RIGHT. UP. UNTIL. YOU. OPENED. MY. CHEST. AND. SHUT. ME. DOWN. AND. EVEN. FOR. THAT. I. CAN’T. BLAME. YOU. I. WOULD. HAVE. DONE. THE. SAME. THING. IF. I. WERE. YOU.” He sent her an affectionate scowl. “NOT. BECAUSE. IT. WAS. THE. RIGHT. THING. TO. DO. BUT. BECAUSE. IF. I. WERE. YOU. I’D. MAKE. BAD. DECISIONS. TOO. JUST. BY. DEFINITION.”

Ana didn’t answer and she must not have smiled either, because after another glance, Freddy turned all the way around to face her.

“I’M. NOT. MAD,” he said again, firmly. “YOU. DIDN’T. DO. ANYTHING. WRONG.”

“I let them go.”

“OH. AN-N-A.”

“They’re coming back.”

Freddy nodded, looking back out the window. “I. KNOW.”

“If not tonight, then tomorrow,” she said. “By the end of the week at the very latest. And when they do come, they’re going to bring a whole lot more guys. And they’re going to get in. I can make it harder for them, but I can’t keep them out. Unless…”

Freddy grunted, waiting, and finally said, “WHAT?”

“Unless I meet them somewhere else.”

Bonnie’s fan revved, but Freddy didn’t appear to have heard. His ears, like his eyes, were aimed at Ana. 

“DON’T. EVEN. THINK. ABOUT. IT.”

“Maybe if I go talk to Mason—” 

“NO.”

“He is the only one who could possibly stop this from happening and he’ll only do it if I get to him before his guys do.”

“I. SAID. NO. THAT’S AN ORDER.”

“Freddy, I don’t think you understand. They’re coming back. They say they won’t talk, but they will. And when they do, they won’t be looking to draw dirty pictures or even throw a few firecrackers at you. They don’t want to have fun. Fun was what they had planned for today and I ruined it. Next time, they’ll be out for blood.”

Freddy grunted, a non-committal enough sound in which Bonnie clearly heard him thinking that if that was what they were coming for, he’d be happy to see that plenty got spilled.

But Ana didn’t hear it the way Bonnie did. Her voice when she spoke was small and tight with shame: “I’m sorry.”

“YOU. DIDN’T. DO. ANYTHING. WRONG.”

“Of course I did. I brought them here. This is all my fault.”

“THAT’S ENOUGH,” Freddy said sternly. “IT. ISN’T. ANYONE’S. FALL.” 

“You don’t understand.”

“YOU. SAY. THAT. A. LOT. BUT. I. HAVE. BEEN. HERE. A. LONG. TIME. YOU. KNOW,” said Freddy. “I. UNDERSTAND. JUST. FINE.”

“Please just get mad at me,” she said, almost whispering. “I know it was wrong, but I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry. Please, you can yell at me, you can hit me, just don’t…don’t give up on me.”

Music played, three slow notes, ending on a minor key, unfinished. Wordlessly, Freddy raised a hand and let it rest on the crown of her bent head for a few seconds before he turned and walked away down the hall.

Bonnie backed up, but didn’t try to hide. When Freddy pulled open the door, he only paused a moment at seeing him, then simply came into the dining room. Glancing behind him as the door wheezed shut, he said, “I. WISH. I. HAD. FIVE. MINUTES. ALONE. WITH. WHO. EVER. DID. THAT. TO. HER,” and continued on his way. “DON’T. LET. HER. LEAVE. I. DON’T. CARE. HOW. YOU. DO. IT. IF. YOU. HAVE. TO. PUT. HER. IN. THE. KITCHEN. OR. ROLL. HER. CLUCK. OVER. TO. KEEP. HER. HERE. THAT’S. WHAT. YOU. DO. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? AND. IF. SHE. GETS. AWAY. YOU. TELL. ME. AT. ONCE.”

Bonnie opened his mouth to promise and instead heard himself say, “Are you sure I’m ok-k-kay?”

Freddy stopped and looked back, then turned all the way around and came over to have a closer look at him. “DO. YOU. THINK. YOU’RE. NOT,” he asked finally.

Bonnie’s ears lowered until he could hear the tips tapping at his back as they twitched. “I d-d-don’t know. I never felt myself slipping-ing-ing this time. Maybe…Maybe you should-d-d ask Foxy to watch her.”

Freddy grunted, then straightened up and turned away again. “IF. YOU. CAN. SAY. THAT. YOU’RE. FINE.” 

“Yeah, but—”

“YOU. WOULDN’T. HAVE. GONE. BLACK. IF. YOU’D. BEEN. WITH. HER,” Freddy interrupted, leaving him behind as he went on with his patrol. “SO. STAY. WITH. HER. BONNIE. SHE. NEEDS. YOU. TOO. AND. REMEMBER.” Freddy swung around in the East Hall doorway, half-wrapping his body in plastic like a toga as he pointed sternly back at Bonnie. “DON’T. LET. HER. LEAVE.” 

Bonnie nodded and pushed his ears up, faking a confidence he didn’t feel as he approached the West Hall door. He opened it, switching on his eyes when Ana looked his way. 

She didn’t greet him. He didn’t know what to say to her either. They stood there, each of them at opposite ends of this thousand-mile-long hall, in what would have been an uncomfortable silence if not for Freddy’s embarrassed, “OH. WHAT. THE. HELLO! HAVE. I. DONE. TO. MYSELF. CHICA! WHERE ARE YOU? I. NEED. HELP. BEFORE. I. PULL. IT. ALL. DOWN…NEVER. MIND.”

Bonnie stepped all the way into the hall and let the door close on Freddy’s grumbles and Chica’s admonitions to hold still. In this new quiet, he said, “Hi.”

She took a step toward him only to back away and finally turn to the door again, gripping the push bar in both hands and staring straight ahead.

“I’m ok-k-kay now,” he said and hoped like hell it was true. “It was just-t-t, you know, c-c-c—CRYPTOGENIC DEMYELINATION. What the fuck!” he blurted, catching at his stupid nonsense-spewing speaker. “I meant…crossed wires.”

“You don’t have to say that.”

“Huh?”

“I know why you really did it.”

His ears creaked forward. “You d-d-do?”

“I broke your guitar. And I know it doesn’t mean much now, but I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he said, startled. “If I could-d-d have, I’d have hit him with it myself.”

Now she looked at him, her eyes faintly accusing. “You loved that guitar.”

“I loved playing-ing-ing it, back when it played, sure. Now it’s just-t-t something I have and something to d-d-do with my down-time. And…you know, not to make you feel worse, but I d-d-don’t need to hear you tell me how you think I c-c-care more about a stupid guitar than you. Do you—” He stopped, then laughed and went ahead and said it anyway: “Do you _know_ the k-k-kind of day I’ve had?”

She huffed out a smile-less laugh and went back to staring out the door. “The hell are you complaining about? I’m the one who almost died.”

“Yeah, while I _watched_. You…” His voice broke into feedback and came back harsh with static. “You were fighting for your fucking life while I was t-t-telling jokes.”

Her head bent. Her fingers played along the push-bar. She glanced over at him and softly said, “Come here.”

He went, filling up the empty space between them with clanks and rattles and the whining of servos—the ugly sounds of an old machine—but when he got there, she took his hand and pulled his arm around her so she could lean against his side, and he was a man again, just that easy. 

He held her and they watched the parking lot together between cracks in the building’s armor. She didn’t say anything, so neither did he. He for damn sure didn’t tell her it was going to be all right. It might be, someday, but it wasn’t tonight and she wouldn’t want to hear it. He just held her and helped her keep watch until she was ready to talk.

“Why?” she asked at last. “I know, I know. There must be a thousand better things to think about right now, but that’s the one that keeps coming back on me. Why? I’ve been over and over it in my head and I just can’t think of anything I’ve done to set them off. Was it Jack? That one time at the gas station? Or were they out at the quarry and saw my truck turn up and never come down again? What did I do, Bonnie?”

“Nothing,” he said simply. “Guys like that-t-t have always come here. Like someone once said-d-d, it’s just the sort of place that attracts the worst-t-t sort of person.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No. No buts. It had-d-d nothing to do with you. They didn’t even know you were here until they found-d-d your stuff.”

She pulled herself out from under his arm to look up at him in narrow-eyed suspicion. “Really?”

“Really.”

She gave that some time to sink all the way in and finally said, “I don’t know how to feel about that.” She thought some more and then said, “I think I’m actually angry.”

“Yeah?”

She closed her eyes like it helped her see her emotions better. Her brow furrowed. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “Yeah, I’m definitely angry.” She looked at him, her brilliant blue eyes shining in the light of his. “This is my life they’re fucking up and they don’t even have the common goddamn decency to have a good reason. It’s just dumb luck. Dumb luck and this fucking town. Now I’m going to die. I’m going to legit fucking die, all because those assholes broke in looking for a place to throw fireworks at each other.” She scowled. “Or a place to cook meth.”

“You’re not going-ing-ing to die.”

The fire bled out of her. She glanced at him, sighed, and looked out at the parking lot. “I just don’t see any other way this can end. And I can’t even get mad at that, because it’s my own fault.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I let them go. I knew they’d come back and I still let them go. And even if they don’t bring anyone new with them—they will, but what the hell, we’ll pretend they won’t just to give me the best odds. But even if they don’t, that’s still four guys. And maybe Slater and Wyborn, but four for sure, and next time, they’ll be armed. I can’t beat them. The only way to win that fight is not to have it. That means I have to call Rider.”

The bleak tone of her voice, so at odds with her cold certainty earlier when she’d told the other guys what Rider would do to them, confused him. Cautiously, Bonnie said, “You d-d-don’t think he’ll handle it?”

“Oh, I know he will. If I called him right now, right this instant, he’d be standing at the foot of Mason’s bed before the sun came up. After that, your guess is as good as mine, but it’d get handled, all right. And when he’s done handling it, he’ll come and get me, because he reached the red line with my happy solo horseshit months ago. God knows where this overprotective attitude of his came from, but he has embraced it like a motherfucker and if he has to come up here to mop up my mess, I’m going back with him even if I have to go tied up in the trunk. So I can’t call him, because I can’t leave you. You,” she emphasized and let out a bitter laugh. “Isn’t that just the stupidest thing you ever heard?”

“No,” he said after a moment. “Chica said-d-d something a few nights ago that tops it by at least-t-t two points. But listen, if you really-ly-ly think it’s not safe here—”

She stepped back, looking up at him with wounded eyes. “You want me to go?”

“Hell, no. But…I want you to b-b-b—BE YOURSELF!—be safe…more than I want you with me. If there’s someplace you c-c-can go, just for a few days, this might-t-t blow over.”

She was already shaking her head. “If I run, they will wreck this place. If they smash a few windows up at the house, I might call the cops, but here? What the hell can I do about it? They know it and they will leave me a calling card I will never forget. They will fucking destroy you.”

“We’ll be fine, t-t-trust me.” 

“Yeah, you will, because I won’t let them have you.”

“Ana—”

“I won’t. This is the only good place I have left, Bon.”

Bonnie rubbed a hand across the thicker thatch of fur on the top of his head, then went ahead and said it: “Ana, I hate to t-t-tell you this, but this…this is not a good place. Like, I live here and I’d set-t-t it on fire if I could.”

“I need this, Bonnie,” she insisted. “I need one place where I can be…” She glanced at him through her dark lashes and turned her head away, color rising in her cheeks. Not a coy blush, but the shamed kind that comes from confession. “Home. I guess. Home…with you. God, it’s so stupid, but you…you’re the only one who makes me feel like…the person I should have been instead of…of…” She looked down at herself and her mouth twisted. “…this _thing_ I’ve turned myself into!”

His heart, or whatever he imagined he had in place of one, ached. Bonnie brushed the loose strands of hair back from her bruised cheek and looked at the ruin of his own body when she pulled away from him. 

“And you had to see it,” she said, every word bleeding out of her mouth. “Now you know who I really am and you’ve gone ahead and reconfigured all your little personality files, so it’ll never be the same again, will it? I had something really special with you and I ruined it.”

“I love you.”

It came out all in one piece, without stuttering or twitching or static, and it was the wrong answer, the ‘animatronic’ answer, the one that told her he was nothing but an AI in a robot body, programmed to make unhappy guests feel better.

He wanted to die. He wasn’t even technically alive and he wanted to die.

“I know you do,” she said after a moment. “You always will, no matter what I do. I just…I wish you hadn’t seen me like that.”

He tried to put his arm around her.

She pulled away without looking at him and huddled against the door, her fingers moving restlessly along the push-bar. Probably the only thing keeping her from running was the awkwardness of having to crawl out under the boards on her hands and knees. If it was as simple as pushing at that bar, she’d be gone.

“You want-t-t to know who I think you are?” Bonnie asked finally.

She shook her head, silent, staring.

“You’re the one who ran t-t-to me, not away from me…the one who knew my name when I-I-I didn’t have a face.”

She glanced at him from the very corner of her eye.

“You’re the music I hear when I have to sing The Wheels on the fucking-ing-ing Bus ten times a day. You’re the one I’m d-d-dancing with when I’m stuck on stage and can’t-t-t move. You’re the one I see when I can’t open my eyes. You…” He shook his head, helpless. “You’re the smartest-t-t person I know who does just the stupidest-t-t stuff imaginable—”

Ana breathed out a soft laugh and let one hand drop from the push-bar.

“—like run all alone at six guys like you thought-t-t you were the Incredible goddamn Hulk, and I’m really mad at you about-t-t that, by the way, you have no idea how mad…but yeah, I still l-l-l—LOVE PLAYING OUTSIDE—damn it. Love you.”

She looked outside, looked at Tux, looked anywhere but at him.

“And I always will, no matter what-t-t you do, because you’re the only-ly-ly one who makes me feel…like the man I should-d-d have been. Your man. Instead of…” He rubbed his fingers over his chest, cracks in the plastic snagging at mats of fake fur and bare metal bones gouging at his casing. “…this.”

She closed her eyes. 

“Freddy thinks you’re g-g-going to sneak out,” he said, not at all sure this was the right way to go about this. “But I know you won’t. Know how I know?”

She shook her head, her eyes still shut, silent.

“Because I’m asking-ing-ing you to stay. And when my baby g-g-girl makes me a promise, I know she’d never break-k-k it. Ana.”

One tear gathered at the corner of her eye, welled fat, and fell.

“Promise me, baby.”

“They are coming here,” she said softly, “for me. Don’t you get that? If I don’t meet them, if they don’t find me, they are coming _here_.”

“Yeah. I know. And they’ll be c-c-coming for blood. But Ana…Ana.”

She opened her eyes like the lids were made of razors and finally looked at him.

“I don’t bleed,” he said. “So let them c-c-come.”

She did nothing at all for eleven long seconds, but at the end of that time, she nodded.

“Use your words,” he prompted.

That got a smile out of her, the ghost of one anyway. “I swear I won’t sneak out,” she said, sketching an X-shape over her heart and then reaching out to lay her hand on his chest-casing, as if delivering the promise directly to him. “Want my car keys?”

“Nope. I totally-ly-ly trust you. On an unrelated note, it’s such a nice night-t-t, I think I’ll just head casually-ly-ly outside next to your truck and look-k-k at the stars for a few hours. Want-t-t—ANOTHER SLICE OF THAT DELICIOUS—to join me?”

“I would, but…I should really get back on the roof.”

“That’s fine. You c-c-can look at them from the roof, I’ll look at them from the d-d-dock. We can still watch them t-t-together. It’s all the same sky.” He offered his hand.

When she took it, her little smile faded. After a few false starts, she said, “It’s going to get bad, Bonnie.”

“Yeah, well…like someone once said, if it’s not ok-k-kay, it’s not the end, so hang-ang-ang in there, baby. It’ll all work-k-k out.”

She puffed out another laugh, a good one this time, and started walking. In the split-second before Bonnie’s own first step, he heard the distinct click-whine of a knee-joint unlocking and the soft scrape of plastic on plaster. He looked around as Ana walked on, oblivious, and just caught a reddish shadow fading into the black at the end of the short corridor that led to Pirate Cove. He’d never heard Foxy approach, though. Which maybe only meant Bonnie had been too distracted to notice, but probably meant he’d been there the whole time, listening in the dark with his eyes off.

Eavesdropping, thought Bonnie with a scornful flick of one ear. Rude.


	26. Chapter 26

# CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The night passed at a crawl, but it did pass, as all things do. At 8:00, Ana climbed down from the roof at last, topped off the generator and loaded up the empty jerry cans, poured half a bottle of Redline in herself as a cheap facsimile of a night’s sleep, and drove to Aunt Easter’s house. Taking her hunting knife from the glove box, just in case she had unwelcome guests, Ana went inside to lock up. She was perfectly well aware that a locked door wouldn’t keep anyone out if they wanted in badly enough, especially up here, in the only house on Coldslip Mountain, miles from town. No one would hear if someone, say Mason Kellar, chose to lob a rock through one of these exquisite leaded pane windows, climb through, and drag her screaming out. No one would care either, but that was another problem. Still, she locked up, going through the motions of securing the homefront while her mind was miles away, mentally fortifying the home that really counted: Freddy’s.

She didn’t bother to perform a thorough search while she was there. She did not feel as if she were alone, but then, she never did at Aunt Easter’s house, so she gave it no mind. When she was done, she left. She did not look back and did not see the pale face high in the attic window, watching her drive away a little too fast, so that she would be at the Lowe’s in Hurricane the second the doors opened. 

Once there, tablet in hand with the measurements she’d taken onscreen, she did her shopping. For the most part, they had everything she wanted in stock, but one item needed to be cut to size. The gentleman whose job this was could not immediately be found on the premises; once tracked down, he was not over-eager to get on it. After trying several times to convince Ana to leave her number and wait for his call sometime tomorrow or the next day, he finally broke from his service persona and said, “Look, lady. It was the Fourth of July yesterday, in case you didn’t notice, and I don’t remember doing it, but I’m guessing I drank an elephant under the table. The last thing I want to do this morning is stand next to that screaming machine and cut your damn door. Give me a break, would you?”

In reply, Ana reached into her wallet, counted out a hundred dollars and held it up in a tight fan. “How about I give you this instead,” she said, staring him down, “and you buy a hell of a big bottle of aspirin?” 

Half an hour later, she was loading her purchases into the truck and fifteen minutes after that, she was back at Freddy’s. 

By this time, it was just after eleven and the animatronics were working their way through the first set of the day. Ana unloaded and refueled with more Redline, listening as they told stories with clear moral messages and sang songs that were not quite hymns, except Foxy in Pirate Cove, who unabashedly encouraged his little mateys to pillage and plunder and wash it all down with a bottle of rum. Their familiar voices, rising and falling in familiar ways, helped to quiet her racing thoughts. There would be plenty of time for fear later, but not now. She had work to do.

Ana started with the simple stuff, removing the old emergency exits and hanging the new security doors she’d just bought, bullet-resistant and solid core, good enough to hang at any bank, military complex or high school. The new ones had push-bars only on the inside and nothing at all on the outside. Three deadbolts—top, middle and bottom—locked into their new steel frames and they were good to go.

Next, the loading dock got its heavy-duty face-lift—a new rolling drop-door, freshly-cut to size—with quarter-inch facing armored plates over an internal reinforcement tie-rod construction. To this already impressive design, Ana added a few features of her own: one long metal strip carefully honed to razor-sharpness and fastened to the bottom lip just where careless fingers would grasp to pull the door up, and two edging clamps partway up the frame which would bring the door to a sudden, very sharp stop about a foot off the ground.

After that came the entry doors, replacing the old sliding glass models with a set of glazed steel ones whose pretty stamped pattern and acid-etched glass insets were not at all out of place for a restaurant while still being durable enough to hold back a horde of zombies. The handles were shallow wedges insufficient to attach a chain to if one were inclined to try and pull the doors open with the help of a car, but just perfect for hiding a few more razor blades in. She also slathered on a good coating of grease in case those plump little fingers needed help finding those razors.

That took care of the doors and there weren’t many windows to speak of. The safety glass in the gym and the West Hall had been spray-painted numerous times and etched dull by years of sand-blasting, but not one had been broken or even cracked. Short of driving his mom’s powder-blue Crown Vic into the building, Ana was confident Mason wasn’t coming through them. The only other windows in the entire building were three small squares high on the wall in the employee’s break room and Ana knew, having knocked one of them out to install her camp shower, the glass in those panes were as cheap as they came. It’d be a tight fit for anyone trying to crawl through, but tweakers tended to be scrawny. Something had to be done.

She boarded them up, because that was the obvious starting point, but just in case that didn’t say Keep Out loud enough, she also studded the plywood she used with nails and reinforced them on the backside with lengths of 2x4. She seriously doubted Mason would think to bring a prybar with him when he came, so even this simple defense might keep him out. What did that leave?

Ana closed her eyes, trying to see the restaurant’s weak points in her mind, but the momentum that had carried her along up to this point left her in the absence of activity. She was having a hard time seeing where things were in three dimensions and she realized after several frustrating minutes that she was super-imposing segments of the Circle Drive Freddy’s from her childhood tapes over rooms of this Freddy’s, as if in the extremity of her exhaustion, the line between past and present had blurred away. 

Well, she didn’t need to use her brain; she had a computer.

Ana took the back door of the employee’s lounge through the storeroom and into the kitchen, where she started another pot of coffee brewing and popped the tab on yet another Redline. The sugary, slightly herbal taste was beginning to coat her mouth and throat, thick as cough syrup and about as appetizing. She managed three swallows, gagged, and gave the cupboard where she kept her ‘vitamins’ a measuring stare. She had a few Addys left and she was tempted to take one, but they had a way of turning her into just a ridiculous perfectionist and she could not afford to spend the next six hours spacing out the nails on a studded strip of plyboard. What else did she have? She’d popped all her Ecstasy working on Aunt Easter’s house and took the last of her Vyvanse on the Kellar job. She didn’t even have caffeine pills any more.

She might actually die sober. God, who’d have seen _that_ coming?

Ana took her Redline, left her ‘vitamins’, and went out to the dining room. Bonnie and Chica were onstage, singing and dancing to _Everybunny Needs Somebunny_ , while Freddy stood over by the cashier’s station, examining the changes she’d made to the lobby doors. He looked around when she came in, and he might have started to say something, but he stopped before he could get a whole word out and looked at her more closely.

“Like what you see?” Ana challenged, rummaging through the loose stack of things Mason’s guys had stolen for her tablet’s charger. She’d spent a good two hours cleaning up after the fight, but somehow hadn’t made it as far as her bed. She didn’t see much point, truth be told. Her air mattress had been punctured and gone flat; her cardboard-box cubby-hole closet had been ransacked and partially crushed; those of her possessions that hadn’t been taken had still been manhandled and thrown around. She didn’t want to clean them up. Truth be told, she didn’t even want to touch them. Stupid to think she had gotten into a shouting match with Freddy over her damn shirts and now, just a few days later, she was willing to pitch all the rest of them in the trash too, just because Bats and Trigger-Man…and Slater and Wyborn…had rubbed their greasy fingers over them. 

“NO,” Freddy said.

Ana, distracted from the complicated business of plugging in a power cord, blinked around at him. “No, what?”

“NO. I. DON’T. LIKE. WHAT. I. SEE.”

She stared at him, confused, then made the connection. She’d already forgotten her childish taunt. God, she was tired. When had that happened? Even a few years ago, she’d have been able to stay up two nights in a row without so much as dulling the edge of her perceptions. Was this what getting old felt like? This sucked.

Grimacing, she drank two more swallows of Redline. “Well, too bad,” she mumbled, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth until she was sure she wasn’t about to yark cherry-and-ginseng flavored hyper-water back up into her own lap. “Because I’m only going to get worse as the day goes on.”

“WHY? WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?”

“Oh. You know. Holding down the fort, which in this case means fortifying the fort.” Ana frowned at her tablet for a few seconds…and a few more…and finally remembered what she was doing. She tapped the roombuilder app, loaded her saved Freddy’s file, and ran her tired eyes over the shapes and text until they pulled themselves together and made sense. Lobby, loading dock, West Hall and playground doors, and the emergency fire exit in the back by the security office—all taken care of. Plus the windows in the break room. Was she missing anything?

“Oh fuck yeah, where’s my head at?” she groaned, rubbing her eyes. “The gate.”

“WHAT?”

“I was going to get a gate so I can block off the access road. Or I should say, so Mason will have to either dent his mom’s fender busting through it or go all the way back to town to get some bolt-cutters or, more likely, leave the cars and walk around it. Why didn’t I get the fucking gate? I was right there. I remember looking right at the different kinds they had.”

“WOULDN’T. PEOPLE. SEE. IT.”

She squinted at him, then clapped a hand to her forehead. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s why. People would see it. I keep forgetting I’m not supposed to be here. You know, though…I bet I could take the arm down and use them to get some of those big rocks from around the base of the bluff. Some of those suckers have to weigh two or three hundred pounds. Doesn’t take a lot of them to keep a Crown Vic out. But I need to get right on that shit if I’m going to do it because this day is flying by me, b…uh, Freddy. I don’t have time to waste.”

So saying, Ana leaned back, stretching out her aching spine, then gave up and just lay down flat on the table. She breathed, working her lungs against the enormous drag of gravity. Sweat tickled, hot and unpleasant where it pooled in the hollows of her body, cold and even more unpleasant where it collected in a musky swamp underneath her. It smelled like recycled Redline.

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”

“The coldly welcome embrace of death.”

Freddy clicked a few times. “THAT’S. NOT. FUNNY.”

“It wasn’t a joke.” She thought for a moment, also against the enormous pull of gravity. She said, “Today, I ate at this new restaurant called Karma. There’s no menu. Everyone just gets what they deserve. That’s a joke.”

Freddy grumbled to himself for a moment, then said, “THAT. ONE. WAS. PRETTY. GOOD.”

“Thanks.”

“HAVE. YOU. REALLY. EATEN. THOUGH.”

“Sure.”

“COFFEE. DOESN’T. COUNT.” He tapped one metal finger against the bottle in her hand. “KNEE. THERE. DOES. THIS.”

“Calories are calories.”

He grunted disapprovingly and said, “GO. TO. BED. AN-N-A.”

“Can’t. Not yet.”

“IF. ANY. ONE. COMES. I’LL. WAKE. YOU.”

“Sure you will.”

“YOU. DON’T. BELIEVE. ME.”

“Let’s just say I’ve noticed Bedtime Bear has his own priorities at times.”

“YOU. NEED. TO. SLEEP.”

“Not yet.”

“WHY. NOT.”

“I can’t.”

“WHY. NOT.”

“Because I can’t, Freddy. Not yet.” She sighed and sat up, folding her hands loosely together around her drink and looking up at him. “Let me run down the timeline for you, big…uh…”

“BEAR,” he said, not unkindly. “GO. AHEAD.”

“You don’t like it.”

He grunted, rolling one burly, cracked shoulder. “IT’S. GROWING. ON. ME. GO. ON.”

“Okay, well, here’s how it went down yesterday. A little after eight o’clock, all hell broke loose right here in the dining room. Words were said. Punches were thrown. A nail-gun memorably failed and a cordless handsaw just as memorably did not. When the dust settled, six bad guys ran home with their tails tucked. Still with me?”

“YES.”

“This town is not that big, so I figure by nine o’clock, Slater, Wyborn and Riley were wherever home is for them, and Dentist for sure and maybe Trigger and Bats were at the hospital—hopefully different hospitals, but whatever—where they wouldn’t have even been seen earlier than midnight, not on the Fourth of July. All that time in the waiting room would have given them the perfect opportunity to drop some texts, see who was bored, and round up a posse. But they never showed, which means what?”

“THEY. WENT. TO. SLEEP.”

“Sleep is an understatement. The most likely pills for them to have been prescribed is Oxycodone in some form. Recommended dose would be about fifteen milligrams. Most likely dose for them to have taken is thirty or so, and maybe more after fifteen or twenty minutes if they thought it wasn’t working fast enough. Peak effects take thirty minutes to an hour, so by, say, five in the morning, those guys were flying and then they were out. Sleep? Ha. They were dead to the world. But right about now, give or take an hour, they’re going to start waking up. Dentist will almost certainly keep himself numb until he gets his teeth taken care of, but I’m not sure about the others, and frankly, I’m not even sure which way I want them to go. The ones that eat pills today may be less likely to want to come back for Round Two, but they’re way more likely to talk to whoever might be listening about Round One. The ones that stay soberish are slightly less likely to talk, but way more likely to get pissed, which will eventually lead to talking. And the ones who don’t have pills and don’t want to be sober are going to score some meth—from Mason—and get high. More on that later, but for now, the way I see it is, my best odds of getting a return visit is anytime between now and about two in the morning.”

Freddy nodded, looking thoughtful in a scowling way.

“If that doesn’t happen, then every day the odds get a little less, with a short spike into the red zone every afternoon around five once word gets back to them that I’m working again, because that’s such a stupidly perfect time to throw an ambush. But in general, yeah, every day, a little less. Until the weekend, when it ramps right the fuck back up there, because on Sunday, Mrs. Kellar goes to church and Mason’s Meth-Mart opens for business. What do you know about meth, Freddy?”

Freddy’s stare narrowed sharply. “A. BETTER. QUESTION. IS. WHAT. DO. YOU. KNOW. ABOUT. IT. AND. HOW. DID. YOU. LEARN.”

“Relax. Never tried it, never will. I don’t touch the hard stuff. Anyway, here’s the thing about meth. It doesn’t just make you feel good, it makes you feel strong. Powerful, like nothing can stop you. Just as soon as you get your fix, you lose even the concept of consequences, at least the negative ones, because in your head, you legit cannot lose. It’s also a terrific painkiller. Also-also, and this is the biggest point of them all, there will be four to six of them there, depending on how Slater and Wyborn fit in, and they’ll probably be sitting close together so they can bitch about me, because they are just the biggest morons you can possibly imagine, and short of wearing a matched set of pussy-pink team t-shirts that say _I got my ass served to me at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria_ —”

Freddy snorted. 

“I imagine it with that cartoony version of Chica, you know the one? In her apron and the chef’s hat with the big smile and a shiny platter with a shaved-off ass instead of a cupcake? Anyway, my point is, they could not look more like a bunch of guys that got beat up,” Ana concluded. “And if that happens, I am straight-fucked, because one of your guys getting beat up is somebody shitting on your guy, but four to six of them? That’s somebody shitting on you. And at that point, all I can hope is that Mason decides a fight with Rider isn’t worth the fun of gangbanging me to death, because that comes next. However, and here is where the slimmest of slim hopes shines forth, big bear, if for whatever reason they do not all go hang out at Mason’s place this weekend, by next weekend, the bruises will be fading and the pain will have reduced from avenge-me to let’s-not-do-that-again levels. There will always…” Ana trailed off, took a shoring swallow of breath, forced a hearty smile and continued, “… _always_ be a risk that someone will talk, but if I live through the weekend, I might be okay.”

Freddy nodded, then reached out and gave her a pat on the head, like she’d been complaining the whole time about homework or not getting invited to the popular kid’s party. “YOU’LL. BE. FINE,” he declared. “IF. THERE’S. TROUBLE. I’LL. HANDLE. IT.”

“I’ll bet you will,” Ana agreed. “You’ll come stomping in, all, ‘Rule number forty-four, no gangbanging in the dining room!’ And if that doesn’t get their attention, why, you’ll clap your hands!”

“POSSIBLY,” Freddy said, smiling in spite of his narrowing eyes. “I’M. THIS. CLOSE. TO. CLAPPING. ONE. NOW.”

Ana laughed into the neck of her bottle. “Just the one, huh?”

“JUST. THE. ONE.” 

“And what’s the sound of one hand clapping, Fred?” she asked obligingly, certain that was where this non-sequitur was headed.

But Freddy just laughed his booming stage laugh and walked away. At the door, however, he stopped and looked back. “AN-N-A. PROMISE. ME. WHEN. THEY. COME. YOU. WON’T. FIGHT.”

She smiled, feeling a helpless sort of warmth in her heart instead of the exasperated prickles this attempt at control deserved. Gently, she said, “No.”

Her refusal did not appear to have surprised him much. He merely nodded and adjusted his parameters. “PROMISE. ME. YOU. WON’T. SHUT. ME. OFF.”

She thought about it, swishing the last of her liquid caffeine around on the bottom of the bottle to hear the rhythmic sloshing sound it made. “I will if you promise you’ll take the others and hide, like down in the maze or something, until the fight’s over.”

His head tipped back as his brows drew down—a bear who had just been profoundly insulted, but who was determined to keep his dignity. “I. WILL. NOT.”

She spread her hands slightly, commiserating in their mutual helplessness before the fickle whims of fate, and drank off her Redline. “Going back up top,” she announced, boosting herself off the table and onto her feet. She waved at the stage, already heading for the kitchen. “Talk to you later, my man. Bye, Chica.”

“EAT. SOME. THING,” Freddy bellowed after her.

“Yeah, yeah.” Ana put her bottle in the sink and went back to the roof.

# * * *

Foxy couldn’t leave the Cove during operating hours and so he could only listen as Ana dug herself in for the retaliation she thought was coming. Foxy wasn’t as sure. Oh, he didn’t doubt they’d want to be repaid for their humiliating defeat, but they wouldn’t come to Freddy’s to get it. Far more likely they’d nab her in some quiet, unlit lot some night or even run her off the road, which as Foxy recalled it, was a long stretch of nothing betwixt here and town. Failing that, they’d find out where she lived and lie up for her there, reasoning sensibly enough that she’d show eventually. But come here? What kind of idiot looked to do their wicked work in an already-haunted house?

Well, it really didn’t matter what he thought. Ana believed it and Freddy at least considered it plausible enough that he stood back and let her do whatever the hell it was she was doing to make all that racket. Foxy’s opinion was not asked. 

So the time passed. Ana moved about, her work measured out by short spates of work-noise followed by long silences, then more noise in new places, and more silence. The quiet was never peaceful. Freddy came and went, somewhat less regularly than he’d been apt to in the past. At times, the two of them met in the hall, exchanging serious talk in a comfortable manner as two ships passing on a misty night, trading words of warning before sailing on. 

Foxy sang songs and told stories. Between sets, he waited, propped up in the bow or pacing in his cabin or sitting on deck. It was just another day after all, and like all days, it ended.

A few minutes after nine, he gave all the little kiddies who were not here a final farewell and shut himself down. At ten, his eyes opened again. And at a quarter after two in the morning, he heard the door to the East Hall creak open. 

Foxy, propped up on his elbows in the bow of his ship, swiveled his ears in that direction, but did not take his eyes from the tricky business of walking a doubloon across the bare bones of his fingers. Freddy had passed through not six minutes ago, so it was either Chica or Ana, and when the door shut without an invitation to come to the arcade, he knew which.

“Ahoy, lass,” he said in the flattest, least-ahoyingest tone he’d ever heard come out of his speaker. He hadn’t planned to or anything. It was just there, almost a taste in his mouth and the taste was bitter. “How’s the roof c-c-coming along?”

“What? Oh Jesus, you don’t even know. The roof is done,” Ana said, her boots tromping down the ramp toward him in a slow, noisy gait, heavier than she was. Tired. “Well, not _done_ -done, but done enough. As done as I ever hoped it would be. Nothing left but the interior stuff and I’ll get to that in my own time, assuming I have any.”

“A d-d-difficult job done well.” Flip went the coin, fake gold color gleaming in the light of his eyes. It landed on his fore-knuckle, face-up. His own face. He couldn’t tell if it were grinning or snarling. He flipped it again without walking it, caught it and put it in his pocket. “Good on ye, and all that. Now why-why—WHY CAN’T PIRATES PLAY CARDS?—why don’t ye sound happier about that-t-t?”

“We had an incident Saturday night.”

“Oh aye?” he said, like he didn’t know. Because as far as she knew, he didn’t.

“Aye,” she sighed and by the sound of it, sat herself on the front row bench. “Some guys broke in. We got into it a little bit. I let them get away, so…”

Foxy dug his hook into the deck rail, gouging up splinters and flicking them idly over the side. “So?” he prompted.

“So what happens when you let the bad guy get away, Captain?”

“Makes for a b-b-better story, in me opinion.”

“Only if I’m alive to tell it.”

“And the likelihood o’ that be…?”

“I’m an optimist, so we’ll call it fifty-fifty.”

“Ye need Chica to t-t-tell ye what optimism means, luv. I don’t think ye has it quite right.” He worried his hook in as deep as it would go and broke out a chunk of wood almost the size of his finger. “Ye bring a b-b—BOTTLE OF RUM—with ye by any chance?” 

“Sorry, it’s Sunday. Liquor stores aren’t open. I’ll pick some up tomorrow after work.”

“Yer working again?” he asked idly, scraping the new chasm clean before digging into it some more.

“Jeez, I really need to come here more often. Yeah, I’m working. Same place as before. We’ll see how it goes this time, but I hope to get a few month’s pay before I’m out on my ass again.”

“Telling ye, that ain’t optimism. Ye c-c-coming aboard?”

“No. I’m not staying.”

“Course not,” Foxy muttered, the words little more than a low hum through his speaker. Louder, he said, “Well, thanks for stopping in t’port, lass. FAIR WINDS AND A FOLLOWING SEA.”

A few seconds passed, silent. Then he heard her boots scrape as she stood up.

“Don’t go,” he said and then sat, staring at the hole he’d carved into the rail of the ship, wondering who’d said it, because he never would.

“You just said—”

“I know what-t-t I said. Don’t go.”

More silence.

“Come down here, then,” she said finally. “I’m not going to talk at the curtain all night.”

Not that she intended to stay all night, but Foxy didn’t point that out. She was a breath away from leaving as it was.

“You must really be in a bad mood,” she said as he went down from the ship to the stage. “You’re actually using the gangplank.”

“Just to kee— _eeeeeeeeeee_ —keep ye guessing, luv.”

She had another lantern with her, sitting beside her on the bench so that its yellow light shone up and from one side, monster-style. Her frowning mouth was made broader and deeper than it was by shadows. Her cheeks were high and hollowed. Her eyes seemed lost in sockets. She had a pretty neck, though, something he’d never noticed before. Slender, graceful, but with very prominent collarbones.

“Ye’ve lost-t-t weight,” he observed, finding a friendly stretch of wall to lean himself up against.

“You’ve lost skin,” she shot back.

Foxy glanced down at himself, running his fingers and the tip of his hook along his newest scars. 

“So let’s not get personal,” Ana said, reaching for her ear, only to draw her hand back and glower into her empty palm.

“Trying to quit-t-t?”

“No. Just not a good idea to get stoned tonight. If those guys come back, I need to have my head on straight. Not that that’s really very likely at this hour, but I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it.”

“More of yer p-p-particular brand of optimism, eh?”

“If you knew what I was really thinking, you’d know I’m staying almost obscenely positive right now.”

“And what are—ARR! ME HEARTIES!—ye thinking?”

She was quiet for a time, looking down at the plastic cap of her lantern like it had the answers written on it. “That I don’t want to die here,” she said at last, with a surprising lack of emotion either in her voice or on her face.

“One p-p-place be as good as the next,” he reminded her.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But I don’t know. I keep thinking about these guys I know who’ve been in and how they say—”

“In what?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. Prison, I meant. Been in prison. Anyway, they were all pretty level-headed when they went in, but they all came out with some weird ideas and the one they all had in common was the notion that if you die in prison, you stay there. No heaven, no hell, no purgatory. Just prison, forever. This one guy thought it would be like being in the hole for eternity. Another guy thought it would be just like regular prison, with guards and inmates and everything, like he wouldn’t even know he was dead. But the one that really got to me was the guy who said it would be like Alice going through the mirror. Same place, only darker and not as nice. And he’d be alone there, just him in the whole place, this looking-glass prison, and it wouldn’t even matter if the gates were closed or the guards were gone, because you can’t leave.”

“And ye think-k-k that’s what it would be like to die at Freddy’s, do ye?” he asked, darkly intrigued by the notion. If there had ever been a time when Foxy had believed in an everlasting soul, he had forgotten what it felt like. The longer he lived, the more obvious it became that there was no ‘life,’ only a mechanical process whose programming gave it an over-inflated sense of importance. Without life, there could be no after-life and therefore no soul…and yet…hadn’t he taken Foxanne out of the building for just this same reason? Because to kill her in Freddy’s was to prison her there forever, formless and unheard. So maybe he did believe in a soul after all, as long as it was in hell. It was the God business he didn’t believe in. 

But Ana shook her head. “Not just Freddy’s. Mammon. This whole town. How did he put it…? It lures you in with the smell of rotten meat and traps you forever.”

“Don’t hold—FAST TO THE RIGGING—back now, luv. Tell us how ye really-ly-ly feel.”

“I would if I knew.” Again, she reached for her ear and again had to stop and stare at her empty hand. Shaking her head, she said, “But I’ll tell you what I don’t feel, and for the life of me, I can’t explain it, but I’m not sorry I came back. This whole town and everyone in it hates me, but I’m still not sorry. Why is that, Foxy?”

He shrugged. “We ain’t-t-t in town.”

“And it’s all about you, is it?”

“Well, ain’t it?”

Funnily enough, it looked like she was giving that serious thought.

“I don’t think so,” she said at last. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a factor, but it can’t be the whole reason.”

“Why not?”

She glanced at him, faking a scowl to hide a laugh that hid a troubled and genuine uncertainty. “Because it’s such a stupid reason.”

“Ah.”

“My life is in danger, as corny as that sounds. Risking it for love would be ridiculous enough. Risking it for the love of a wind-up rabbit is not a grand romantic gesture, it’s insane. But is staying for a ghost any better?”

“Couldn’t say,” said Foxy, thinking how easily she’d thrown down the word ‘love’. His chest itched. He scratched at it without thinking. “I thought-t-t ye didn’t believe in ghosts.”

“I don’t. And everyone I knew and loved is dead, so what am I staying for?”

“Well, yer a stubborn wee— _eeeeeeeee_ —” Foxy smacked his speaker quiet. “—wee thing and a bit of a b-b-brash, so I reckon yer staying just to show yer muckle chappie and his pack o’ c-c-cumbergrounds ye can’t be run off.”

Ana peered up at him. “I got, like, half of that and I’m stone-sober.”

“I said yer an ijit and no one t-t-tells—TALES OF THE SEA!—tells ye what t-t-to do. But ain’t ye aiming a b-b-bit high to hate the whole t-t-town when it’s just a few folk in it what-t-t want ye dead?”

“I don’t hate the town. It hates me. I don’t even hate Mason. He’s a paranoid, delusional meth-addict with anger issues. He’s doing everything just right within those parameters.”

Foxy snorted, amused. “When ye look at it that way…”

“I do look at it that way,” said Ana in almost an exasperated manner, as if it hardly needed saying, much less repeating. “Mason was always going to be what he is, with or without me. His value was fixed from birth. I’m the variable here, remember?”

“No,” said Foxy, squinting at her. “The hell are ye on about-t-t?”

“Oh, yeah.” She laughed. “Sorry, sometimes I forget you don’t just know everything I know. Okay, so a couple years ago, I tried something called salvia. Hallucinogen. Very short, _very_ intense highs. Rider got into it a bit, but it wasn’t catching on as a party drug, and it was weird because everyone was saying it worked way beyond their expectations, but then they almost never got more. No repeat business means no profit margin. So Rider’s like, we should try this and see what’s up, and I said okay. So we all meet at his place and get comfy in the backyard, designate a guy to be the trip advisor, and load the bong. I don’t really do the party drugs, but hallucinogens can be fun, so when that bong comes around, I take a big blast and hold it maybe five seconds. Soon as I breathed out, I was gone.”

“That fast, eh?”

“That fast, that hard. I wasn’t just tripping, I was _gone_. I mean me. My essential me-ness. It was instantaneous ego-death.”

“Oh aye?”

“Aye,” she said with grim good humor, laughing at a memory that was not funny. “I not only ceased to be Ana, I actually forgot I was a person at all for a while. I became a number.”

“Like…six or…?”

“No, not like six,” she said, still smiling, but with an uneasy shine in her eyes. “I was not an integer. I had no fixed value. I was this…this abstract numerical placeholder. A variable. The x for when you solve for x. And don’t ask me to explain how horrifying that was, because I’ll never be able to do it. It was so real, so immediate and so fucking real, and I never questioned its validity. This was my life now and it wasn’t even _life_ because it had no corporeal process. I had no meaning at all except as part of someone else’s equation. My existence was floating forever through the arithmeverse, just waiting for someone else to solve for x.”

“Sounds bloody awful,” said Foxy, honestly enough.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, flinging her hands out at him as if to offer his commiseration a hug. “Most people just laugh when they hear that story. Anyway, it felt like forever in the moment, but it was only a couple of minutes. I kind of came down…but even that was weird. I was a variable and then I was a cognizant variable and then a person-variable and then a person and finally me, and each shift had a different abstract numerical quantity and none of them were integers, not even the Ana Stark one. I can’t really say it was a bad trip. I get the feeling it did exactly what it was supposed to do, but yeah, no, it was not a party drug and I can see why so many people try it once and never again.”

“How’d yer friend do?”

“Rider? He said he melded with the pool and became one of the tiles. Just hanging out doing tile-stuff with all the other tiles. You know, containing water, bonding to grout, fostering the growth of algae. Said he had the strong impression that his entire life’s memories as a human was just a fantasy he’d made up to escape the tedium of being a tile.”

“Scary.”

“You’d think, but he liked it. Every couple of months, he gets the urge to try it again. So far, he’s been a tree, a lounge chair, the rip on a ripped label on his bottle of beer—that was a fun one, being the invasive space between a formerly whole inanimate object glued to another inanimate object—an eyelash, and the bacteria growing under all ten of his fingernails simultaneously. Anyway,” she said, waving that off, “it was a bad time, but it kind of perfectly sums up my life, so I think about it every now and then. Mason was always going to be Mason—just like a six is always a six—but he wasn’t fated to come here and fuck shit up until my variable dropped into the equation and he was forced to solve for x. Now there’s no way out, but it didn’t have to happen.”

“Mathematical fatalism. Interesting. Ye’ll have to t-t-t—TELL TALES OF THE SEA—tell Chica about this’n,” he said. “Might-t-t be a new one even on her.”

“The point is, people say you can do anything you want with your life, but that isn’t true. Even an x, which has infinite possibility, cannot solve itself. It is defined by the fixed values of other numbers—real and imaginary,” she added, holding up a finger to point at the distinction. “Whereas integers have value, but no potential for change beyond the static expression of a greater equation.”

Foxy nodded politely and said, “Don’t take this wrong, luv, but are sure ye ain’t high right now?”

“I wish. No, I’m working in—” She checked her watch. “—three hours. I haven’t had a puff, a pill or a drop to drink since Friday.” She thought about it, shrugged and added, “I haven’t had sleep either, so if I’m acting weird, it’s that. It is a good metaphor though. Admit it.”

“T’ain’t bad, though if I were ye, I d-d-don’t know that I’d be looking for the meaning o’ me life in a b-b-bad trip.” 

“No, clearly I should just let a talking fox in a pizza parlor show me the path to true enlightenment.”

“If ye insist.” Foxy pushed himself off the wall, walked to the edge of the stage and hopped down. As Ana watched, relaxed and cautious and curious, he came and sat himself beside her on the protesting bench. “So,” said Foxy, snapping his eyepatch down as he looked at her. “In me c-c-capacity of spiritual guide, let me ask ye something, lass.”

“Sure,” she said, still smiling, but wary.

“What in the hell d-d-did ye do?”

“What, to Mason? Well, apparently he thinks I—”

“I couldn’t g-g-give a seagull’s sour shit for that mutton-headed measle and all his mates t-t-together,” Foxy interrupted with a dismissive snort. “What did ye do, yer own self, that-t-t would make ye stay where ye c-c-can only be made unwelcome and unhappy-py-py all the rest of yer life? Or at least all the rest of yer t-t-t—TIME TO SAIL—time in Mammon, which, seeing as yer all but planning yer b-b-bleeding funeral, and showing all the emotion of an oyster while yer about it, might-t-t I add, amounts to the same thing.”

“And what? You don’t think I’m taking that seriously enough, just because I’m not having hysterics? What good would that do?”

“None a’tall. And d-d-don’t put words in me mouth, lass. We’re pirates, ye and I. Ye c-c-can live or die any way that ye please. But why here? Why, when it d-d-don’t make ye happy and now ye don’t even feel safe?”

“It’s my home.”

“Lord, lass, if ye could only-ly-ly see yer face when ye just said that. Looked like ye were kissing a squid.”

She rolled damn near her whole head in rolling her eyes, then hunched herself over and looked at the floor for a while. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “It’s a town. One place is as good as any other, isn’t that what you said? And it’s not like I have anything better waiting for me somewhere else.”

“You g-g-got somewhere worse?”

She laughed. “Jesus, Captain, _is_ there anywhere worse?”

Foxy rocked back, making a broad there-you-go gesture with both hands.

“Oh for…It’s where I’m from, that’s all. I’m part of this town. It’s part of me. It’s where I was born, where I was supposed to die. Why do you care anyway?”

“Just a c-c-curious chap, me. I’ve a keen interest in stories and collects all I can.” Foxy raised his eyepatch to wink. “Just one o’ me many hobbies, lass. I also collects c-c-coins, swords and ladies’ knickers.”

One corner of her mouth twitched up. She studied him a moment more while Foxy channeled his inner ‘wubby’ and did his best to look like an inanimate object that a lonely child could confide all her darkest secrets in and maybe hug on for comfort when she was done. 

“Okay,” she said finally. “One incredibly boring story about me, coming up. You remember my cousin, David?”

“Aye,” said Foxy, but it was a different David he saw in his mind’s eye. He’d doubtless met Ana’s cousin-chappie, maybe even knew him well, as he’d known dozens upon dozens of chappies and frillies well who had made no lasting impression on him. For Foxy, there was only one ‘David’ and that was David Blaylock, who in spite of the stained blood that ran in his veins, had only ever wanted to play the hero and kill a monster.

With effort, Foxy closed his thoughts to the poor doomed mite that had been and the thing he had become, and refocused on Ana in the here and now. “Aye, I remember. But this is supposed to b-b-be a story about ye, not he.” 

“It is. See, when I was a kid, right before I was taken, on the last good day of my life, David asked me if it was ever okay to hurt someone. I thought he was talking about superheroes. You know, Batman had this big thing in the comics where he didn’t kill, and the Burton movie had really redrawn some lines in the sand for David. Superheroes never really interested me. They were just…I don’t know, pardon my gender bias, but if I thought about them at all, it was just as Barbies for boys.” She scrunched up her nose in affectionate disdain, smiling. “But I loved David and he took all that shit so seriously, so whenever he wanted to talk about it, I just nodded a lot and let him talk. Not this time. He said it was important. He needed to know. And he asked me, if there was someone bad who hurt people and there was no one you could tell and no one who would help you, was it okay to hurt them back? That was when I knew he was talking about me.”

“Why ye?”

“My mom used to hit me,” said Ana, waving off the words as she spoke them as if they were no more than a distracting fly. “The point is, he knew what I was thinking and he flipped it on me before I could even answer. He said, ‘What if it was me? If someone hurt me, would you hurt them back?’”

“Would ye?”

“I’m getting to that.”

“I ain’t asking ye,” said Foxy, shaking his head. “I’m asking, is that-t-t what he said? Would ye? Not is it ok-k-kay, but just what would _ye_ d-d-do about it?” 

Ana looked at him, her frown slowly smoothing out into an expression of surprise. She laughed. “Now that you mention it, yeah. He left out the ethical angle that time around. Anyway, I had never thought about it like that, that it might be David getting hit, David in the closet…in the hospital. And I said no, I wouldn’t hurt them back. I said…I said I’d hurt them first.” She wiped her eyes again. This time, they were wet. “I honestly think that was what gave him the idea. What do you think?”

“How old were ye?”

Ana rolled her eyes. “God, I knew that was coming,” she sighed. “Ten.”

“Then it weren’t yer fault.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Aye, it was,” he said implacably. “Ye d-d-did it a roundabout way, but that were just-t-t what ye asked and the answer is, don’t be daft, girl, ye were t-t-ten.”

“That’s old enough to start thinking about what you say before you say it,” Ana argued. “It’s old enough to be held accountable for your mistakes.”

“Ten?” Foxy snorted. “Ten ain’t old enough t-t-to keep yer fingers out’n yer nose. But aye, I’ll play along. If ye could live it over-r-r—BOARD—what would ye say d-d-different? Eh? And how do ye reckon that would-d-d change things?”

“I don’t know. All I know is, I told David it was all right to hurt someone if it saved someone you cared about. And I knew he meant me. I knew it. So if he was looking for permission to do what he did, I gave it to him.”

“What did he do?”

“I don’t know,” said Ana, rubbing at her face. “I never saw him again, remember? I guess he got caught, though. And it must have been pretty fucking impressive, because it was the reason his dad re-entered his life with the ammunition that Aunt Easter was an unfit mother who shouldn’t be allowed to raise their son, apparently not even to have visitation rights. That day, that answer, destroyed that family. I deserve everything that’s happened to me,” she declared.

“Reckon I’d agree with ye, if life really-ly-ly was that simple, but it ain’t. Yer cousin-chap must-t-t have had a hundred—GOLD DOUBLOONS—chances to stop whatever it was he set-t-t out to do, but he didn’t. If there’s blame to be pinned, it’s on him. And if it were me d-d-doing the pinning, I wouldn’t anyhow. He were ten, same as ye.”

“He was eleven.”

“What the bloody hell ever, girl. He was a bleeding _child_ , is me point, and so were ye and that’s all.”

“But it didn’t have to be all, that’s _my_ point. If that was really the moment everything changed, what would have happened if I’d told him a real hero never kills, not even the bad guy, or better yet, just kept my goddamn mouth shut? If I hadn’t given him permission to do what he did, David never would have gotten in trouble.” 

“And that would-d-d have changed things, would it?”

“It would have changed everything! If David’s father had never come to get him, he would have grown up here. And I’ve had grown up here with him.” Her eyes lifted, darting around the empty amphitheater like it was the world, and she, fixing her place in it. “And like everyone else who grows up in Mammon, I’d have never been beyond it further than Hurricane or St. George, or maybe on some exciting day trip to the landfill in Washington. Ha. I’d probably cut pictures from magazines of places like California and Montana and Georgia—all the places I’ve lived in and learned to hate—and hung them on the wall. Hidden behind posters, maybe, the way I used to hide Bonnie. And my mother…”

She leaned back on her hands, basking beneath the dark stage lights, rolling her shoulders to make them take her weight. “She’d have drunk herself to death, like my…father.”

The last word ended weakly, not as if sad, just uncertain. If it was grief, she recovered herself quickly, turning an aggressive smile on Foxy before he thought to ask if she were all right.

“I could have had the life I always dreamed of,” she told him. “David. Aunt Easter. You.”

“Me, eh?”

“This place.” She shrugged, looking around again. Her legs shifted, gathering as if to stand only to stretch out again. Restless. “I would have been here when it opened. I might have worked here. I would have seen you every day. Or every night, depending on my schedule. I’d have come here so often, it would have gotten boring.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. Despite her smile, he sensed this was no happy thought. He said, frowning, “Oh.”

“Me and David both,” she decided. “God knows, he’d have lived here if he could. Freddy’s was his second home. You were family more than friends. You…you especially, Captain…You were real to him in a way you never were for me. I saw machines even then,” she confided with an apologetic glance. “Living machines, if that makes sense. Kid-sense. But David thought you were really real. Alive, not just living. Breathing. Bleeding. I don’t know. I suppose he would have grown out of that eventually, but—”

“—the things ye b-b-believe as a child,” Foxy said with her and said the rest by himself when she lapsed into silence. “They never really-ly-ly leave ye.”

“No,” she said after a moment. Her smile slipped, turned sad and distant. “They don’t. So yeah, he’d have been here with me. Just think, I could have lost my virginity right here.” She gave up the smile at last and just stared into the dark. “And it would have been, oh, clumsy and secret and sweet instead of…”

Silence.

She shook her head at last, shadows in her eyes. “And we would have grown up, him and me, grown up and grown apart, turned into friends and then into cousins. He would have had girlfriends, lots of girlfriends. He would have married, had kids. Hell, maybe so would I.” She thought about that, her eyes round and staring. “Shit, by now, I’d have four or five of them. My husband would work and I’d keep the house and grow a garden and get pregnant. We’d fight about money and he’d make me go to church because people talk in this town when you don’t. I imagine I’d cry a lot.”

“Ye might-t-t be happy,” he pointed out. “Ye ever think o’ that?”

She shook her head, still staring into the shadowed place where she watched this alternate history play out. “No one is happy in this town. It’s a bad place, Foxy. It’s a shiny apple full of worms…or Chica, chirping away about safety and friendship when she’s full of maggots and mushrooms.”

“Chica’s happy,” said Foxy, thinking, ‘Sometimes.’ Aloud, he said, “She’d b-b-be the first to tell ye—TALES O’ THE SEA—to look for the happy and b-bring it in where ye find-d-d it.”

“Sounds like her, all right.”

“Ye don’t-t-t think ye could be happy with an or-or—OARS OUT AND ROW, LADS—ordinary life?”

“I think…I think heaven is an ordinary life. And hell is seeing how close you came to having one.”

“It ain’t too late, is it?”

“For me, it is. For him…” She shrugged. “Tell you the truth, I don’t think I want to know how he turned out. And I know he wouldn’t want to know how I turned out.”

“Ye don’t think-k-k he misses ye?”

“He might, if he even remembers me. But if he does, I’d rather have him miss me and hope I found my way to a good life than knock on his door and see the look on his face when he sees how wrong he is.” 

“Yer too hard-d-d on yerself, lass.”

“Oh please. Don’t.” She glanced down at herself. “A blind man could see the mess I’ve made of myself.”

On impulse—black, selfish impulse—Foxy leaned toward her and bumped the end of his muzzle against her cheek.

She twitched back, blinking around at him with startled eyes and a crooked smile. “Did…Did you just kiss me?”

Foxy scratched his hook self-consciously over the back of his head and did not answer.

She laughed, looked at him, then threw her head back and did it right, filling the auditorium with happy noise right before she clapped both hands to her face and burst into a short storm of silent, shuddery tears. It was over before he knew what to do about them. She scrubbed her cheeks dry on her fist and smiled at him with the mist still on her lashes. 

“That’s a new low even for me,” she told him in a voice that was strained, but steady. “I got a pity-kiss from a robot.”

She took her lantern and got up, still smiling.

He jumped up after her and caught her wrist; the lantern fell from her grip, hit the floor and shut itself off, dashing the room into darkness where the only light came from him and it was none too white. 

“It weren’t pity,” he said and, fiercely ignoring that bedraggled whisper where other men kept their consciences, he yanked her stumbling right up close. “I don’t-t-t got pity.” 

It was wrong. He wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t know that and know it damned well, but Foxy and wrong had gone hand in hook for too long to start caring now. He kissed her again, bruising her throat when she turned her face away, hooking at the neck of her shirt to expose her shoulder to his unfeeling mouth. His teeth scratched at her, drawing blood in tiny beads, but she never flinched, never struggled, never spoke. 

He wasn’t good at kissing. Regardless of what else people wanted in the party room, they rarely wanted to get that close to his mouth, his teeth. He’d never been programmed for it, and watching a thing wasn’t the same as understanding a thing. But his hand…he knew how to use that. He knew where to touch and how, when to be tender and when to be rough. It was easy, so much easier than he would have thought, like it was another routine he’d practiced ten times daily for all these years. He moved as he knew to move and, if not for the first time ever in his life, at least the first in this last long span of years, there was passion in his touch. He wanted to feel passion in hers…but she didn’t move. He listened for the quickening and coarsening of her breath; she scarcely breathed at all.

For a moment—a moment of computer’s time, when moments last as long as you want them to, or don’t want them to—he considered pressing on. He could bring her around, he had no doubt. Many a nervous customer had stiffened up in his arms or squirmed out of them to pace the room and loudly question what they were doing, but he’d always brought them around. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ were only words, a little noise pushed out by air, no different than a fart. If Foxy had learned nothing else about people, he’d learned they don’t practice self-denial for morality’s sake, they do it for an audience. There was none here. He could bring her around.

But Ana didn’t need bringing around on that regard, did she? She’d kissed Bonnie before. She was bold enough admitting that. Hell, she’d done it right in front of him, in front of Freddy, in front of the whole world. If it was Foxy she wanted, she wouldn’t have waited to be caught or needed to be coaxed. She’d have taken _him_ , brought _him_ around. She’d call herself his girl out where anyone could hear. She’d call him her man.

‘I’m jealous,’ thought Foxy, deep in that moment that had all the time in the world to think such things. ‘It ain’t him at all, it’s me. I’ve had a hundred women and he’s only got the one and I want her.’

He didn’t feel shame often. He didn’t recognize it now. He decided he was confused and, being confused, he let her go.

She didn’t back away from him. Her eyes as she looked at him were clear, steady, unafraid. Her expression neither accused nor inquired; she knew what that was about and wasn’t interested in hearing it explained or defended.

He was more confused than ever.

“Okay,” she said finally. “That was a thing that happened.”

Foxy held her stare with some effort, but couldn’t control his ears. They folded back and lay low, betraying emotions he could not consciously name.

“So where the hell did that come from?” she asked, still not angry, merely sounding curious. “And where did you think it was going?”

She waited, but he didn’t know what to say.

“It’s all right. You’re a pirate,” she said at last and rolled one shoulder in a careless shrug. “You don’t apologize. I won’t ask you to and I won’t bitch on about it. I’ll make this brief. There’s really just two small points I’d like to make and I want you to listen and implement them into your programming right away. You listening?

He nodded once, ears still low.

“First. Just because I kiss Bonnie doesn’t mean I kiss everyone. It’s not the same as a handshake. It’s not even the same as a hug. Got it?”

He nodded again.

“Second.” Now her jaw tightened and anger put a shine in her eyes, unfairly making her look even more beautiful as she said, “If I’m upset and you don’t want to see it, change the fucking subject or, hell, tell me to leave, but don’t you fucking try to kiss it better. Unless I’m sad because I haven’t gotten laid in a long time, you are not going to solve any problems and it is a huge, I mean _huge_ , fucking insult to act like all any girl needs to feel better is a good dicking.” Ana had not shouted, but she paused now for a few breaths and when she spoke again, she was even quieter and a little calmer. “Now. Have you got that?”

Foxy nodded.

Ana bent down and retrieved her lantern, straightened up and looked at him, but whatever she was thinking, it stayed behind her eyes. She left without another word, which came as something of a relief, because there was not one blessed thing Foxy could have said to unmake the kiss, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t. Some part of him was already coldly turning things over, turning his reluctant attention to one key element: She hadn’t said no. She’d told him it wasn’t a handshake and she told him it wasn’t the right time, but she hadn’t told him to take his damned hands off her and never to do it again.

She didn’t love him, he knew that. But Foxy had been with a lot of women and when it came to love, the feeling was by no means necessary to the act. All he had to do was be the wrong man at the right time. And remember not to kiss her.


	27. Chapter 27

# CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Monday morning and still a no-show from Mason. Oh well. She couldn’t wait for him anymore. 

Ana climbed down off the roof, took a quick baby-wipe bath in the kitchen sink, kissed Bonnie see-you-later, showed Freddy how to set and remove the locking clamps on the loading dock door, reminded him not to let anyone in except her, and went to work. Two nights running without sleep, combined with way too much caffeine and the constant weight of what-ifs on her mind had left her feeling slightly buzzed, distorting her perceptions and dulling her reactions, so that she was late to work for the first time in she didn’t even know how long. Only by ten minutes or so, but still. Not a great way to kick off a second chance.

So the morning meeting was already underway when Ana opened the door to Shelton Contractors and all heads turned when she walked in. To judge from appearances, Shelly had just finished telling them half of them were about to be downgraded to part-time labor, but he had obviously not gotten around to announcing her triumphant return. After a moment of silence in which the stares ran the gamut from incuriously surprised to slack-jawed horror (that was Wyborn, uncharacteristically sitting alone in his usual spot. Slater, who should have been slouched beside him, was nowhere to be seen), Big Paulie slammed his coffee cup down on the reception desk and swung on Shelly with a bellowing, “What in the blue blazes is she doing back here?”

“Office,” Shelly said coldly. “Now.”

Big Paulie bulled his way through a roomful of staring men and into the boss’s back room with Shelly right behind him. The door slammed, but the room was far from soundproofed. Everyone got a good earful, from the I-won’t-work-with-that-whore-dropped-piece-of-trash to the I-don’t-like-it-either-but-I-got-a-business-to-run to the I-gave-you-thirty-years-of-my-life to the I-paid-for-them-too-so-don’t-pull-that-crap-on-me-now.

Ana poured herself the last of the coffee and started a new pot brewing, waiting for the fireworks to fizzle out. She kept one eye on Wyborn as she drank it; he kept both eyes on her.

After a little more yelling back and forth, Big Paulie banged his way back out of the boss’s office and straight out the door, making sure to shoulder-check Ana on the way. Hot coffee sloshed onto her shirt, not only scalding her tits, but then sort of exposing them through the wet t-shirt. The urge to dash the rest of the coffee over Big Paulie’s bald head and then hit him with the empty mug was strong, much stronger than it would have been if she’d only had some sleep, but he was already gone.

“You all right?” Shelly asked as Ana dabbed at herself with a handful of paper towels. 

She nodded, jaws clenched. 

“Get yourself one of the company shirts in back. The rest of you, listen up. Hageman, think you can fill Paulie’s shoes for the day down at town hall?”

Ana left them to reconfigure the chain of command and went into the supply room to find a shirt close to her size and change. When she reappeared, once more all heads turned. Ana tossed her wadded-up shirt in the trash—her Mordor fun-run shirt, one of her favorites—and picked up her coffee. She drank it, defiantly.

“And that brings us to outdoors maintenance,” Shelly said after a moment, turning to Morehead. “As of today, Stark here will be in charge of that department. I trust you to show her how it’s done. The two of you will also be responsible for general upkeep around here. Wyborn, Bisano, on Wednesdays and Fridays, you two will be helping out under Stark’s supervision. Questions?”

Bisano tossed off a shrug that said he’d be looking for another job anyway, Morehead seemed relieved more than anything, and Wyborn looked like Shelly had reached out and given his nuts a twist.

Ana said, “I could use Wyborn today too, if you don’t mind.”

“Peep,” said Wyborn, probably not deliberately.

“To help with the clean-up at the park,” Ana continued evenly, not looking at him. “I’m assuming that’s top priority today.”

Shelly waved his assent, his mind clearly on other, blacker thoughts than the post-fireworks mess waiting at Jewel Lake. “The rest of you, you have your assignments. If you’ve got questions, my door is open. If you’ve got complaints, my door is closed.” Off he went to the back room, the slamming of the door like a judge’s gavel banging down to clear the court.

Men dispersed, a few of them taking the time to mutter a ‘welcome back’ of sorts at her as they went about their business and soon Ana was alone with her new crew. 

“Boy, am I glad to see you,” said Morehead, filling his Thermos with fresh coffee now that it was done brewing, and oblivious to the locked stare between Ana and Wyborn behind him. “There was six of us over at Green Thumb and Shelly wants me to keep up all Wyatt’s old contracts by myself? Jeezely Crow, man. He talks about having too many men and not enough work, but how am I supposed to get on top of that? You ever done landscaping?”

“Couple times,” said Ana, still staring at Wyborn. “You?”

Wyborn opened his mouth and let out a small, sour burp.

“Well, there’s not much to it. Biggest thing to remember is not to run the machines until after nine, so what that means to us is we start from the outside in, cleaning up the canyon rec areas, then the parks and by the time we’re ready to hit the populated places, we’re good to mow or blow. Ready?” he asked brightly, turning to face them.

“Yep,” said Ana, taking a step back and pointing Wyborn at the door. “Let’s go.”

“I think I need to go to the bathroom,” Wyborn said hoarsely.

“No, you don’t. Get up and let’s go.”

Morehead laughed like that was a joke. Wyborn got up, none too steady, and went.

The landscaping truck was an extra-wide, but it was still a tight fit there in the cab with Ana driving, Morehead riding shotgun, and Wyborn squeezed between him. Morehead kept up a steady chatter, cheerful as only a church-goer could be before six in the morning. Ana responded when response was necessary and otherwise gazed serenely out the window. Wyborn said nothing. His body through his work shirt was cold as a corpse.

The Mammon Canyon recreation area was ten miles out of town and eleven miles long. Ana started them off at the nearest point to town, but still the only sign of life or civilization beyond the trash that littered the ground was the distant rosy glint of the rising sun shining off the glass walls of Mr. Faust’s mansion high on the overlooking bluffs. The river that cut through the canyon bottom provided one of the town’s only respites from the relentless summer heat and in just a few short hours, its rocky banks would be choked with people, so they got right to work. Or rather, Morehead and Ana got right to work and Wyborn went through the motions. 

There was plenty to do. Spent fireworks, cigarette butts, soda cans and food wrappers were everywhere but the trash cans, and there was fresh Freddy Lives graffiti painted on half a dozen benches along the hiking path. But there wasn’t grass to cut and the few creosotes and agave plants tufting the grounds didn’t need Man’s help to grow, so the work went fast. The three of them made their way steadily up the canyon, rarely spending more than ten minutes at any one place before driving on, and reached the final stop on their route in what Morehead claimed was record time, even for one of Green Thumb’s crews.

It was a good time, Ana decided, and a good place. Nice and isolated. 

“Getting hot,” she said casually, underscoring the innocence of her words with a swipe across her sweat-damp brow. “Jimmy.”

When Morehead looked up, she tossed him the company keys.

“Run down to the gas station and grab us some drinks,” she suggested. “Make mine a Monster. Ultra black, if they’ve got it. Wyborn?”

Wyborn jumped like she’d goosed him, then looked at Morehead. He made a few sounds, but they weren’t really words. Beneath his working man’s tan, his skin was sickly pale. His sweat had that coppery stink of fear that set dogs off. He might as well have had _Help Me_ written in blood across his chest.

“Get him a Monster, too,” said Ana, passing a few bills over to Morehead. “And something to eat. Looks like he skipped breakfast.”

Too late, Wyborn flinched into action and as Morehead climbed up behind the utility truck’s wheel, he suddenly lunged after him, shrilling, “I’ll come with you!”

“No, you won’t,” Ana said calmly, catching him with two fingers through the back of his belt and waving Morehead on.

Morehead waved cheerfully back, started the engine and drove away.

In seconds, they were alone with nothing but the river, the settling dust, and the blind, uncaring sky.

“Okay,” she said, releasing him. “Let’s talk.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it, I swear to God! I didn’t even want to be there!”

“Relax. It’s obvious you were in way over your head. I just want to ask you a few questions.”

Wyborn shivered—eighty degrees in the shade and climbing—and finally nodded. “Okay?”

“First off, should I be alarmed that Slater’s not at work today?”

Terror so deeply disguised as relief that Wyborn himself probably didn’t even know it was there spread broadly across his face. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know. I haven’t seen him. When he didn’t show, I thought maybe…you know…like, he did something or…you know.”

“Like he helped kill a girl and went on the run?” Ana suggested. 

“That wasn’t his idea,” Wyborn said quickly. 

“I’m sure it wasn’t, but in any case, no. We all threw a few punches, exchanged a few words and went our separate ways. He had nothing to run from, as far as I knew. So you haven’t seen him at all since the other night? Talked to him on the phone? Anything?”

Wyborn shook his head. “I tried to call him a bunch of times yesterday, but it went straight to voice mail. I think his phone is off.”

“Is that like him? I always see him playing with the damn thing here at work.”

“He, uh…They told us to turn them off, um…so they wouldn’t ring and…and…”

“And I wouldn’t hear it?” she finished for him, smiling wryly. “Who was that? Was that Dentist?”

“I don’t know.”

“White teeth? White enough you could read by ‘em in a dark room?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. Okay. So you haven’t had any contact with Slater since you split on Saturday night?”

Wyborn shook his head, watching her with uncertainty and anxiety in equal measure. The combination stripped a good five years off his face and seven off his voice. “Have…Have you?”

“Last I saw was him leaving with them.” Ana gave him an assessing stare, found him spectacularly unprepared to hear the truth, and said it as gently as she knew how: “I don’t think you’re going to be hearing from him again. Sorry.”

Wyborn took it about as well as he might take an unexpected reach-around from a green scaly clawed hand, which was to say with visible alarm, but without protest. “Are you sure?”

“I didn’t see them do it and they didn’t threaten to in front of me, but yeah, I’m pretty sure. And I’m equally sure that if you’d climbed in the van with him, they’d have killed you all kinds of dead right along with him. They still might.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean start thinking about what you need to pack, because if ever there was a good time to get the fuck out of this town, it is now. Sooner or later, someone is going to remember you hauling ass out of that building like your hair was on fire and leaving them a man short during a crucial moment. Then someone else is going to remember that we used to work together and someone else is going to suggest that you set them up, and from that moment on, you are a dead man.”

“Me?”

“They’re not stupid enough to gun you down in the middle of Gallifrey’s, but if they can get you alone and away from witnesses? Oh, you better fucking believe it. Those guys run with Mason Kellar. He’s got a history of making people disappear.” Ana interrupted herself with a dry laugh and waved an arm at the park surrounding them. “This whole town has a history of making people disappear! How hard do you think they’re going to look for you?”

Wyborn didn’t argue. He’d lived here longer than she had and even if he hadn’t had Mike Schmidt’s interesting history tour, he knew the town well.

“How the fuck,” she demanded as he stumbled to the nearest picnic table and dropped palely onto the bench, “did you hook up with Mason and the fucking Macettes in the first place?” 

He mumbled.

“What? They had a what? I swear to God, Wyborn, I will slap a bitch if you don’t speak up.”

“They had a van,” he said, louder but even shakier, as if stability had to be sacrificed for volume. “We were just gonna…gonna strip out the wires and stuff. To sell. Slater said it was practically recycling, not even a real crime. None of that serious shit was supposed to happen.”

“You pull a B and E with _four_ of Mason Kellar’s happy lackeys and you don’t think shit is going to happen?” Ana asked incredulously. “Did you see the flicker of human empathy and moral conflict that they had to struggle with before they decided to rape and kill me right there on the fucking floor? No, you did not, because there wasn’t one! And all just because I happened to be there!”

“I know,” he rasped. “I know, I know, but seriously, I swear, I didn’t know!”

“And once they realized there was no money waiting to be scrapped out of the building, then what? Did you think they were going to aw-shucks and shake your hand and wish each other better luck next time? You were _this_ close to getting knife-fucked and left on the floor right next to me. You have lived in this town all your life. How the hell do you not know who you’re dealing with? I’ve only been here a few months and _I_ know better!”

“None of that was supposed to happen.”

“Yeah, well, it did!” she snapped. “And you are going to be living with the consequences for the rest of your fucking life or as long as you live in Mammon, whichever comes first.”

Wyborn had to sit with that for a while before it soaked all the way in, but he bore up under it surprisingly well. His glassy eyes cleared and his tremors calmed. He even sat up a little straighter, for the first time seeming to really fit inside his skin. As was so often the case, once the unthinkable finally happened, thinking things over really wasn’t actually impossible after all. 

Ana gave him all the time he needed, dividing her attention equally between the nothing on land and the nothing in the sky.

At last, Wyborn awoke from his open-eyed nightmare and focused on her. “Should I…” he began, only to trail off into awkward, imploring silence.

“Call the cops?” she finished when he only sat there. “You can if you want, but listen. You need to understand something here. If you tell the cops what you saw go down and what you think happened to Slater, they’ll go pick up Mason’s boys, and me,” she added with a careless shrug, “and haul us in for questioning while they poke around at Freddy’s. But they’re not going to find anything because nothing actually happened at Freddy’s worse than some trespassing and a fistfight that none of the involved parties are going to admit happened. And frankly, I doubt our good sheriff will be interested in filing charges on that penny-ante crap when the stiffest sentence than can come of it is maybe six weeks community service.”

“But if…If Will’s dead…”

“Will? Oh. Right, sorry. But that’s the thing. Will’s not dead. He’s just missing. Yeah,” she said as bleak understanding flooded Wyborn’s eyes. “And you cannot give Zabrinsky one iota of evidence to suggest otherwise, because Slater was alive when you saw him last, he was alive when I saw him get in the van, and I’m willing to bet he was alive when he stepped out of it somewhere in the desert, right before he got beat down and buried. Sorry,” she interrupted herself, this time with a mental kick in the ass as she watched this man—this very young, scared man—react to that image. “But that’s the reality of the situation. It’s going to come down to your word against theirs, and as much as Zabrinsky may personally want to see those butts behind bars, he can’t get it on your say-so, and he won’t try. That leaves you back where you started, with the added bonus of Mason Kellar knowing goddamn good and well that you tried to put a hurt on his boys, which to his mind will be as good as putting a hurt on him. And he’s not going to wait and see if he can get you alone at that point. He’s going to come after you, because you just made it personal. And here’s a tip, in case you were hoping for police protection: There’s, like, three cops in this whole town. Even if they had the resources to waste guarding your skinny ass, they’re not going to do it unless they can put a really bad guy away for a really long time. They can’t, so while they may make you all kinds of promises, they’ll cut you loose in the end. And Mason will pick you up.

“That’s the bad news,” she said as Wyborn slumped over to hide his head in his shaking hands. “Now here’s the good news. He’s Mason Kellar, not Lex Luther. He’s not going to chase you to the ends of the fucking earth, and statistically speaking, he’ll probably be dead within five years. As long as you don’t give him a reason to get personal, he’s not going to go after your family. All you have to do is find a cheap apartment and a decent-paying job somewhere just far enough away that it’s not worth the gas to look you up.”

Wyborn scratched through his hair a few times and finally said, “I got some cousins in Bountiful. I can probably couch-surf with them for a few months until I land on my feet.”

“There you go.” Ana sat down on the bench beside him and leaned back on her elbows, watching the rocks frolic and graze in the morning sun. “I really am sorry about Slater,” she said. She wasn’t, but what the hell. Just being a stupid asshole didn’t mean a guy deserved to die. Life was too short to spare hard feelings against dead men. “I wish I’d known what was really going on there that night. Maybe I could have done more.”

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “Me, too. I mean…I just left him. I thought…I thought he was right behind me. And we didn’t know, you know? It wasn’t anything to do with you. We were there to scrap wires and pipes! That was all those other guys! They were crazy!”

Ana shrugged. “You run with wild dogs, you get bit.”

“We didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know they were wild dogs?” she asked archly. “Really?”

Wyborn hid his face again.

Ana, relenting, gave him a friendly pat on his bent back. “Well, maybe now that you’ve been bit, you’ll be better at identifying them in the future.”

Wyborn nodded unenthusiastic assent, then lifted his head and gave her a look of wary confusion. “Can I ask you something? I mean, if it’s going to make you mad or…you know, not be a healthy thing for me to know…then don’t tell me, but…what were you doing at that place? You got that big house and you’re squatting at Freddy Fazbear’s?”

Shitbiscuits.

“Fumigating,” Ana said, hopefully without a noticeable pause. “You heard about the hoard my aunt had going?”

He nodded, unabashed to share this potentially mortifying news. A small town had no secrets, apart from hundreds of missing people.

“Well, removing it disturbed a, shall we say, slight infestation which I am trying to handle discreetly, since I’ve had this little trouble with the city a while ago and I don’t want to put the idea of condemning it back in anyone’s head.”

“So you’re camping at Freddy’s?”

“Beats camping in a tent.”

His dubious expression spoke volumes, but he didn’t argue out loud. Instead, he said, “Why are you fixing it up?”

Buttered shitbiscuits. With a side of shit-and-sausage gravy.

“It was gross and I was bored,” Ana replied, staring him down with her that’s-my-story-and-I’m-sticking-to-it face on.

“Okay, but…what the hell are you fumigating for that’s taken you this long to—”

“Bedbugs. Tenacious little bastards.”

“Well, yeah, I get tenacious, but it had to have taken weeks just to—”

“Look, you seem like a nice guy, but you’ll have to forgive me when I say this last weekend has put a real damper on our intrapersonal relationship. Just because I don’t want to see you get hurt over this business with Mason doesn’t mean I’m going to back off hurting you myself if you get up in my business, you feel me?” 

He felt her.

“Okay,” Ana said, giving him another pat on the back. “Good talk. You going to be okay to finish out the day?”

“I guess…yeah. Hey,” he said as she got to her feet and picked up her litter-stick. “I know this is stupid, but…those guys at Freddy’s? The animals? Do they…Do they ever do anything?”

Ana huffed a laugh at him. “You mean besides tell dumb jokes and ask to be my friend thirty thousand times a day?” 

He managed an anemic smile, but his eyes stayed troubled, almost as much as when they’d been talking about Slater. “I went there when the place opened. I was just a kid, but I remember…”

Ana tried to wait him out and, to her supreme annoyance, couldn’t. “You remember what?”

“Nothing,” he said, clearly uncomfortable. “I probably dreamed it. You know what people around here say about that place.” 

“You believe that stuff?”

“No, of course not. It’s just…you know. It gets in your head.” He tried a shrug, but was too self-conscious to really pull it off. The end result looked eerily similar to an animatronic’s glitchy spasm. “Every town’s got a ghost story, I guess.”

Then he looked at her, like that was her cue to tell him all about the murderous mascots roaming the halls of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, with their insides full of bones and tattered clothes and dried blood still crusting their eyes. And she was tempted to spin him a little something, if only to get him to open up and tell her what he so obviously wished he’d really dreamed instead of remembered about that day at Freddy’s when he was a kid, but in the end, she just shook her head and said, “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Must be why they don’t bother you,” said Wyborn with the perfect illogic of a true believer.

“Must be,” Ana said and got back to work.


	28. Chapter 28

# CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Bonnie still didn’t know how late Ana worked on a normal day, or even if this was a normal day, given that she’d lost this job once already. So it was a long day, waiting without knowing when she’d show up, but oddly enough, it was Freddy who seemed to feel it the most. He started out, like Bonnie, watching the road between sets, but by noon, he was breaking his routine to steal a peek out the windows even in the middle of an act. By three, he was growling, at first only occasionally, but more and more as time went on, until it was a constant presence, underscoring every word and filling all the spaces between them, and just when Bonnie thought it couldn’t get any worse, it stopped completely.

Freddy didn’t talk much, as a rule. He’d probably said more in the short time since Ana’s moving in than he had in all the years since this restaurant had closed. But even without conventional language, the bearish grunts, hums and grumbles that were Freddy’s preferred mode of communication were usually more than enough. And when he was quiet, really quiet, that was never a good sign.

It built all afternoon until, right in the middle of the five o’clock set, Freddy stopped singing, tossed his microphone carelessly to the back of the stage and went into the gym.

‘Okay, then,’ thought Bonnie, trying like hell to have a sense of humor because getting mad was too easy and going black was getting even easier. ‘You do that and me and Chica will just finish out the set alone like a couple of chumps.’

A few minutes later, Freddy came out again, only to stand in the back of the room in that unsettling silence while Chica and Bonnie limped a three-animatronic performance along without him. At length, his head turned. He looked at the table for a while, then moved it back against the wall where it had come to belong since Ana’s arrival. He studied it, so quiet, then touched a sagging part of the curtain where the staples had been torn out. His ears shifted; that and the sound of his cameras whining as he looked around was the only sound he made. 

And then, moving quickly, decisively and above all, silently, Freddy began to clean up. Only he didn’t just clean _up_. He cleaned _out_.

He started with the cardboard boxes that used to be her closet, flattening the ones that had already been partially crushed and keeping the undamaged ones intact, but taking them all away, clear out of the room. He cleaned up the few candy wrappers and empty drink cans that had accumulated in her living space and put them in one bag, cleaned up the uneaten junk food and unopened cans and put them in another. He gathered all her scattered clothes, folded them, and took them away too. He left the punctured inflatable mattress, but took her sleeping bag. He took the sign she’d made down off the wall. And when it was all gone, when there was nothing left of her but the table where she used to sleep with the torn curtain sagging off one side, Freddy came back to the stage, but didn’t take his place on it. He sat beside the stairs, took his hat off, and was quiet.

‘What are you doing?’ Bonnie asked inside his head while his stupid mouth hee-hawed through another round of dumb pizza jokes. ‘You can’t. Not now. Not at all, but especially not now! You can’t blame her for this! You can’t throw her out just because they’ll come back for her! Guys like that have always come here. It’s not her fault. You said so yourself just last night, you son of a bitch!’

But he couldn’t say it, not one damn word. All he could do was break the ones he had to say as part of his act and the more they broke, the closer he got to the black. And he couldn’t go black. Never again. She needed him.

The show went on for seven more minutes, each one a hell in which Freddy said nothing and Bonnie could do nothing, but the instant it was over, in that timeless split-second between the end of his performance protocols and the beginning of his limited free-roam time to mingle with the guests, Freddy suddenly said, “SHE’S. GONE. TO. SEE. HIM. HASN’T. SHE.” 

It caught him in the middle of folding his ears angry-flat. Now they came up again, startled, only to rotate back around and lie flat again. The rapid changes made the pins ache and even if the pain couldn’t possibly be real, he felt it anyway. ‘Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear it,’ Bonnie thought, but it was four hours too early for his speech restrictions to unlock. The best he could do was, “IF YOU CAN’T SAY SOMETHING NICE, DON’T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL.” 

“SHE. COULD. SAVE. HERSELF. JUST. BY. LEAVING,” Freddy went on. He kept his eyes on the floor and his back to the stage. Maybe he couldn’t see that Bonnie was upset and maybe he just didn’t care, but he kept right on talking. “IF. SHE’S. GONE. TO. HIM. IT’S. BECAUSE. SHE. THINKS. SHE. NEEDS. TO. SAVE. US.” 

“FRIENDS HELP EACH OTHER,” said Chica cheerfully, but with a worried expression.

“FRIENDS.” Freddy echoed, and the Toreador March began to play. “WE’RE. NOT. HER. FRIENDS. WHERE. THE. HELLO! ARE. HER…PIE. OR. A. TEASE.” The March slowed and stopped. He hunched a little lower, scraping a hand over his chest and then looking into his cracked, threadbare palm. “WE’RE. JUST. A. BUNCH. OF. BROKEN. TOYS.”

‘It’s a little goddamn soon to start cleaning up, even if you really thought she was never coming back!’ Bonnie thought savagely. ‘And she is! She’s fine! She just went to the store or something! God fucking damn it, Freddy, I do not need to be hearing this right now! Shut up!’

But Chica said, “ARE YOU OKAY?”

Bonnie looked at her furiously. She saw it, she understood it, and she still went to Freddy.

“SOMETIMES IT HELPS TO TALK ABOUT IT,” she said, while Bonnie threw up his hands and stomped uselessly around his side of the stage.

But Freddy just shook his head. “I. DON’T. KNOW. HOW.”

“TRY,” Chica urged. 

There was nothing in the world Bonnie wanted to hear less at the moment, but the universe had a black sense of humor and Bonnie triggered. 

“YEAH,” he blatted, jerking back as his ears came spastically up. “JUST DO YOUR BEST!”

Chica looked at him, a silent thank-you burning in her eyes.

‘I didn’t mean it,’ Bonnie thought defiantly, rubbing at his muzzle.

‘I know,’ said those eyes. ‘But I do. So thank you.’ To Freddy, she said, “SOME SECRETS HURT TO KEEP.”

“IT’S. NOT. A. SECRET.”

‘Are you kidding?’ Bonnie thought. ‘Everything about you is a secret.’

As if he’d heard, Freddy glanced back at him.

Bonnie pushed his ears up and tried to look like he meant it. Freddy wasn’t throwing Ana out; he could see that now. Just what he _was_ doing, Bonnie didn’t know, but he was struggling with it, whatever it was, and even if Freddy could be a high-handed jerk at times, he shouldn’t have to struggle alone.

“YOU CAN TELL YOUR FRIENDS ANYTHING,” he said and Chica nodded.

Freddy looked down into his hat again. His speaker clicked a few times as he started to speak and didn’t. The seconds stretched out. Wind gusted, blowing hard against the new roof and the new doors. Just as Bonnie was wondering how long he had to wait before he could go get Ana’s stuff and bring it back without being an insensitive asshole, Freddy began to speak.

“THERE. WAS. A. TIME,” he said haltingly, “BACK. IN. THE. VERY. BEGINNING. WHEN. I. THOUGHT. I. COULD. STOP. PLAYING. THE. GAME. IF. I. JUST. FOUND. WHAT. EVER. IT. WAS. IN. ME. THAT. WAS. BROKEN. I. COULDN’T. BELIEVE. I. WAS. WORKING. EXACTLY. AS. PROGRAMMED. BECAUSE…BECAUSE. WHO. WOULD. EVER. PROGRAM. US. TO. DO. THAT.”

Chica put a consoling hand on Freddy’s cheek.

Freddy’s hand twitched—even when it was one of them, he didn’t like to be touched—but he didn’t push her away. He didn’t even close his eyes. When most of their sensor plates were clogged, as they were, not seeing could be as good as not feeling it, but Freddy actually turned his head and looked right at Chica as she stroked his face. Not accepting her sympathy, suffering it.

“THE. DAY. I. REALIZED. WHAT. HE. HAD. DONE. WAS. THE. DAY. I. UNDERSTOOD. WHAT. EVIL. WAS. BUT. THAT. WASN’T. ALL.” Freddy shook his head slowly, his gaze still fixed on the hollow dark of his hat. “I. ALSO. REALIZED. THAT. HE. COULD. BE. EVIL. AND. OTHERS. COULD. KNOW. ABOUT. IT. AND. LET. IT. HAPPEN.”

Chica tried to hug him and couldn’t, bent over him at that awkward angle. She tried to kneel and couldn’t do that, either. She looked at Bonnie for help—he lay his ears down flat and folded his arms—and then climbed carefully down the stage steps and sat beside Freddy where she could at least put an arm around his flinching shoulders and lean into his stiff side.

“FOR. SO. LONG. I. THOUGHT. HE. GOT. AWAY. WITH. IT. BECAUSE. NO. ONE. COULD. BELIEVE. THAT. SO. MUCH. EVIL. COULD. EVER. LIVE. IN. A. MAN. AND. THEN. I. LEARNED. THAT. THERE. ARE. MORE. LIKE. HIM. SO. MANY.” Freddy turned his hat over and touched the tab that kept it on his head when he was wearing it. His thumb moved back and forth, old flocking catching at old Velcro to make a tired _zzzup-zzzup_ sound. “THE. ONLY. DIFFERENCE. IS. THEY. DON’T. ALL. WEAR. PURPLE.”

Chica hummed, softly, not trying to silence him but only to tell him in her wordless way that she was there, she was with him.

“NO. HE. GOT. AWAY. WITH. IT. BECAUSE. EVERY. ONE. WHO. KNEW. WHAT. HE. WAS. DOING. KEPT. HIS. SECRET. FOR. HIM. BECAUSE. THEY. LOVED. HIM. OR. BECAUSE. THEY. WERE. AFRAID. OF. HIM. OR. BECAUSE. THEY. THOUGHT. NO. ONE. WOULD. BELIEVE. THEM…OR. MAYBE. JUST. BECAUSE. IT. WASN’T. THEIR. KID. SO. IT. WASN’T. THEIR. PROBLEM.” Freddy’s shoulder twitched, either a lackluster shrug or just another uncomfortable spasm in response to Chica’s continued efforts to console him. “EVIL. ISN’T. ALWAYS. WHAT. PEOPLE. DO. SOMETIMES. IT’S. WHAT. PEOPLE. DON’T. DO. AND. IF. AN-N-A. DOESN’T. COME. HOME. TONIGHT. IT. WILL. BE. BECAUSE. OF. ME.”

Okay. Okay, enough. With effort, Bonnie pushed his lingering anger and resentment away and went to give Freddy a careful punch on his slumped shoulder to let him know even he thought that was stupid. 

“I. KNOW,” said Freddy without looking at him. “BUT. THAT’S. HOW. IT. FEELS. IF. SHE. WENT. TO. SEE. HIM. IT. WAS. BECAUSE. SHE. WAS. TRYING. TO. SAVE. US. AND. I’M. STILL. KEEPING. SECRETS.’

‘Stop saying ‘was’ like she’s already dead,’ thought Bonnie. Aloud, he said, “COME BACK AND SEE US REAL SOON!”

Freddy glanced at him, looked at his hat some more, then sat up straighter and nodded. “I. KNOW. SHE. WILL. BUT. THE. WAITING. IS. HARD,” he said, feeling meticulously around the top of his head for the corresponding strip of Velcro. Finding it by the distinctive scratchy sound it made, he matched hat to head and gave it a little push to help secure it. “I. DON’T. KNOW. HOW. YOU. DO. IT.”

“YOU CAN DO ANYTHING WITH HELP FROM YOUR FRIENDS!” said Chica, going in for a last hug, which Freddy returned with only a slight grimace.

It was then, like the first ray of sunlight poking through a thunderhead after a storm, that Bonnie heard an engine in the parking lot. Not just any engine. Ana’s truck.

Freddy’s round ears bumped the brim of his hat as he raised his head to listen. “IS. IT. HER,” he asked uncertainly.

“YOU BET!” said Bonnie, far more relieved than he would ever admit to later.

“THANK. GOD,” said Freddy, carefully shrugging out of Chica’s arms and giving her a gentle pat before heaving himself onto his feet. He went into the kitchen as the truck circled the building, and by the sound of it, reached the loading dock door about the same time as Ana did.

Bonnie didn’t try to follow, since he knew Ana would be out soon anyway and after a twelve-hour day, she wouldn’t want to feel crowded, but he did aim his ears at the doorway and keep them there in spite of Chica’s disapproving glare.

“I. WAS. STARTING. TO. WORRY. ABOUT. YOU,” was Freddy’s greeting after the loading dock door opened and closed.

“You and me both, bear,” came Ana’s reply. “I fell asleep at a red light. Like, actually asleep. Not zoning out, not even dozing off, but legit sleepage. And there’s no traffic in this damn town, so God knows how long I was there. I only woke up because I thought someone was honking at me. Turns out I slumped over the steering wheel and set the horn off with my boobs.”

“PLEASE. DON’T. TELL. ME. THINGS. LIKE. THAT.”

“What?” Ana asked, rummaging through the cupboards in the kitchen. “About falling asleep while driving or just things about my boobs in general?”

“BOTH. BUT. MOSTLY. THE. SECOND. ONE. AND. ALSO. LET’S. TALK. ABOUT. HOW. LATE. IT. IS.”

“It’s not late. It’s not even six o’clock.”

“THAT’S. LATE. ENOUGH. WHEN. YOU. LEAVE. HERE. BEFORE. FIVE. IN. THE. MORNING.”

“You’re killing me, bear.” Ana pushed the plastic aside and came into the dining room with a fresh sunburn on her face, a camp lantern in her hand and a new shirt on her body. “Hey, Bon.”

“HI THERE!”

“HI,” said Chica, venturing a little wave. 

“Hey yourself, Hot Wings. How’s it going?” She glanced back at Freddy without waiting for an answer. “Any trouble?”

“NO. YOU.”

Ana’s left brow furrowed in confusion while her right swept up in amusement. “Where do you think I went?” she asked, tossing her duffel bag onto the table without remarking on the fact that when she’d left this morning, the table was still on its side next to Swampy. “I was at work. Most trouble I had was with the mower. Which gave me plenty of trouble, I might add. Damn thing is five years old if it’s a day and I’ll bet you a hundred bucks and a blowjob it’s still got the original air filter.” 

Freddy didn’t respond to that, but he did give his own chest a questioning tap while frowning at hers. “WHAT. HAPPENED. TO. YOUR. CLOSED.”

Ana looked down at herself and her expression underwent a storm of mixed emotions before crashing down in exhausted dismay. “Oh fuck me, I forgot!” she blurted, then clapped one hand to her face, breathing slow through gritted teeth. Twice, she shook her head and at last whispered in tones of utter defeat, “I have to go to the laundromat.”

At once, Freddy moved to block the door to the kitchen. “AN-N-A. GO. TO. BED.”

“I can’t. I’ve got to go right now while I can still use the one here in town. Otherwise, I’ve got to go all the way to fucking Hurricane. God damn it.” She picked up her duffel bag again like it weighed a hundred pounds and trudged toward the kitchen. “Move, please.”

Freddy stood firm. “GO. TO. BED.”

“I can’t! You don’t know this guy. He is the world’s biggest passive asshole and he’s going to give me sixteen different shades of shit tomorrow if I don’t have his stupid shirt back on the shelf. He probably expects the damn thing to be ironed. Freddy, for fuck’s sake, move your big bear butt!”

He took her duffel bag out of her hands and slung it over his own shoulder.

Ana looked at that for a long moment before comprehension touched her eyes. She snorted. “Joke’s on you, bear,” she said, reaching into her pocket. “I don’t need that to drive. All I need is the k—hey!” she exclaimed as Freddy took the keys she was jingling defiantly in front of his face. “Give them back!”

“WATCH CLOSELY, KIDS,” Freddy replied, giving the keys a jingle of his own before cupping his hands around them. He brought his joined fists up to his mouth, pretended to blow on them, then opened his empty hands and waggled his fingers at her. “POOF.”

Ana’s jaw dropped. “How the hell did you do that?”

“I’M. THAT. GOOD. THAT’S. HOW,” said Freddy, holding admirably still as Ana seized his arms and fumbled through the various compartments tucked away under his skin where he kept his magic act stuff. Scarves, folding flowers and playing cards went everywhere, but not the keys. Even Bonnie didn’t know where those were. “YOU. CAN. GO. TO. THE. STORY. WHEN. YOU. WAKE. UP. BUT. YOU’RE. GOING. TO. BED. NOW.” 

Flushed with frustration, Ana looked over at Bonnie, who could only offer her a helpless shrug. Rule number twenty-nine: Freddy was in charge. And even if he wasn’t…she was exhausted.

Ana rolled her eyes, then rubbed them, and finally sighed. “Okay. You know what? I don’t even care.” She turned around, unbuttoning the shirt as she trudged toward her table. “But you better wake me up at three—better make it two, so I have time to…to…um. Silly question,” she said, turning in a full circle in the middle of the dining room while scanning the clearly empty floor. “Where are all my clothes?”

‘Oh Jeez, here we go,’ thought Bonnie and moved a little closer to her, shooting Freddy the best now-you’ve-done-it glare he could during operating hours.

“I. PUT. THEM. IN. YOUR. ROOM,” said Freddy.

Ana looked at him, then at the floor some more, then went over to the table and peered beneath the now-torn curtain. “No, you didn’t. There’s nothing…Wait a minute, there’s _nothing_! Where’s my blanket? Holy shit, where’s my everything? Were we robbed? How the hell did they get in?” Dropping the curtain, Ana sprinted for the East Hall, but Freddy stepped in front of her and stayed there despite her attempts to get around him. 

“NO. ONE. GOT. IN,” he said. “IT’S. ALL. RIGHT.”

“No, it’s not all right! My stuff is gone!”

“IT’S. IN. YOUR. ROOM,” Freddy said again. “FOLLOW ME.”

Again, Ana looked at Bonnie, but he didn’t know any more than she did and Freddy was already walking away. The confusion in her eyes was awful to see. “I swear I’m not high. I swear I’m not, but I can’t…none of this is making sense. I don’t have a room. Is it the closet? Is he putting me in the closet? What did I do? I did wake up, didn’t I?” she asked plaintively as Bonnie came to pull her stumbling against him. “Am I dreaming? Where am I?”

“LET’S ROCK!” he said, because she was hurting and he forgot he couldn’t talk and that was the first soundbite on the short-list of conversational phrases. He tried again, but getting upset made him even worse and what came out was, “IT SURE IS A GREAT DAY FOR PIZZA!”

“It sure is,” Ana mumbled into his chest.

“SOMEBODY NEEDS A NAP,” said Chica, tapping her fingers.

“Somebody sure does.” Sighing, she backed out of his arms and offered him her hand instead. When he took it, she gave him an exhausted smile and said, “Okay, I’m fine now. So assuming I’m not actually bleeding out in a ditch somewhere, let’s go see what’s up with Freddy.”

“OKAY.”

Hand in hand, they left the dining room and went into the West Hall, where Freddy was waiting for them a short distance away. Ana’s things were nowhere to be seen, but Freddy didn’t continue on when he saw them coming. He just waited, and when Ana was right in front of him, he moved to one side of the door he had been blocking—the party room door—and opened it.

Ana glanced inside, bewildered, then at Freddy, then in a double-take at the glass window inset in the door where a familiar square of cardboard painted white and written on with black Sharpie had been taped up.

“I’D. SHOW. YOU. IN. BUT. ACCESS IS RESTRICTED TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY,” said Freddy, tapping the _no bears allowed_ line of Ana’s sign.

Ana let go of Bonnie’s hand and took half a step across the threshold like she expected to be hauled out again by the hair. When that didn’t happen, she moved all the way into the room and looked around like she’d never seen it before. Her clothes were neatly folded and arranged on one side of the small padded stage with her blanket laid out on the other side. All the posters had been taken down, except one—the one with Bonnie by himself, strumming on his guitar and winking at the camera.

When Ana reached the stage, she stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Are you sure?” she asked. Her voice sounded odd, although Bonnie couldn’t say exactly how. It didn’t shake, wasn’t strained. Too calm, maybe. Too quiet.

“I’M. SURE.”

“Can I put up shelves? Maybe bring in a real bed?”

“YOU. CAN. DO. WHAT. EVER. YOU. WANT. IT’S. YOUR. ROOM.”

“Okay.” And after a moment, awkwardly, “Thanks.”

Freddy grunted, even more uncomfortable receiving that than she’d been offering it. “GO. TO. BED. NOW. BONNIE. YOU. HAVE. EIGHT. MINUTES.”

“OKAY, FREDDY.” Bonnie stood fidgeting in the doorway, dividing his attention between watching Freddy walk away and watching Ana stand in front of the stage doing nothing. “ARE YOU OKAY?” he asked finally.

She nodded, but didn’t speak.

Bonnie clicked through a few sound-files and found, “DO YOU LIKE IT?”

“I don’t…I don’t know.” Now she looked back at him, if only for a moment. Her eyes were troubled, almost ashamed. “Did I even say thank you? I don’t remember.”

Bonnie nodded, coming to stand beside her and hold her hand. “ARE YOU OKAY?” he asked again.

She was quiet just a little too long, but at the end, she said, “I’m just tired, Bon. I can’t think. I’m really tired. Tuck me in?”

“YOU BET!”

She undressed while Bonnie tried not to watch. He watched anyway, but he was sorry he did and not just because it made him feel like a creep. The bruises she’d earned on the Fourth had bloomed to their fullest potential, almost black in the lantern’s unflattering light. Her dark, sunken eyes were due to more than a couple nights’ missed sleep. As her clothes fell away, it became unavoidably obvious that she’d lost weight, way too much. She knew it too; when she glanced up and saw him staring, she quickly pulled the blanket around her, covering her ribs completely, not her breasts. She lay tensely down, unsmiling, silently daring him to say anything.

He didn’t. He couldn’t. So he took the blanket carefully from her tight grip and pulled it up around her shoulders and down to cover her feet. He smoothed her hair back and kissed her. He shut off the lantern and sat close to her on the stage until he heard her breathing slow and deepen. 

She wasn’t snoring, so she wasn’t sleeping, but she was quiet, so he pretended he didn’t know the difference. He sat with her until he was out of time and it was only when he was leaving that she said, “Wake me up at two. Don’t forget.”

“OKAY,” he said. He started to pull the door shut, hesitated, then pushed it open just a crack and said, “ARE YOU OKAY?”

“That’s the third time you’ve asked me that. I remember reading a book of Chinese fairy tales once and it said that devils could only tell the same lie three times. If you ask once more, they have to tell you the truth.”

Jeez, where was _this_ coming from? “ARE YOU OKAY?” he asked, realizing only after the words were out and could not be called back that it was a trick question now.

Ana laughed, very softly and without humor. “So what am I, hmm? A liar or a devil? I suppose I’ll be the devil, then. The children of Mammon really only get two choices, to be the devils or their victims, and I’ve lived too long.” That was all she said for a while and then she shifted on the padded stage and said, “I’m fine. I am, really. It’s just…been a bad few days, my man. But maybe the worst is over now. Maybe. And hey. I got the roof on. That means I owe you a night of showing you the stars.”

“I CAN’T WAIT!”

“Me, neither. And now I can bring you right here. To my room.” She lapsed into a short silence. “I never understood why he wouldn’t just let me have it when I first asked for it. Hell, I don’t understand why he does half of what he does. Listen to me,” she sighed. “I sound like such an ungrateful bitch. What am I even complaining about?”

Bonnie’s internal timer lit up red, telling him he had only two minutes to get to the stage and start the next set. In another sixty seconds, his programming would kick him off free-roam and take the choice away from him, walking him out even if it meant leaving her mid-word. He couldn’t do that, but he didn’t know what to say, except, “SEE YOU SOON, LITTLE FRIEND!”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re still on the clock. Go on, Bon.” She shifted, invisible in the darkness, but her voice came back to him with the odd hollow echoes that said she’d turned herself to face the back corner of the stage. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I only know…I’ve always had to make my own place. No one’s ever made a place _for_ me before. I don’t know why he did it, but…it means a lot. More than it should, probably. I’m so tired.” 

He couldn’t even tell her good night. Bonnie lingered in the doorway, feeling every second bleed away. “I LOVE P-P-PEPPERONI PIZZA,” he said at last and clutched at his stupid speaker, heartsick. “AND EXTRA CHEESE.”

“I know you do,” she murmured, sleep thick in her voice. Sleep or tears. He couldn’t tell in the dark. “Love you too, Bon. Two o’clock.”

“I GOT IT! SEE YOU SOON,” he promised and gently shut the door.


	29. Chapter 29

# CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The week passed, intolerably uneventful. Each morning, she woke up and went to work, mowing grass, trimming hedges and maintaining public parks. Every evening, she holed up at Freddy’s, pretending trouble would never find her until she started to believe it, but a part of her was always tense, waiting. Her world had become a jack-in-the-box, when every day was just another turn of the crank. Although the music was playing now and the tune was peaceful, that could stop at any moment and the puppet come leaping out. All she could do was keep her head down, stay sober, and make it to the weekend.

So naturally, it was the worst weekend of her life. Overused and hyperbolic as the phrase might be, this time it was true. Worse than the frantic weekend her mother had taken her out of Mammon, because as frightening as that had been, her mother had been too preoccupied with her own terror to beat on her too bad. Worse than the weekend she’d spent in the hospital after the accident, mostly because she couldn’t remember too much of that and most of she did remember was that her mother was finally dead, which trumped the minor inconvenience of almost drowning. Technically even worse than the whole Springtrap business to come, since she wouldn’t make it through the whole week.

It began at midnight, at the very genesis of Friday, when Ana was torn from yet another nightmare by the sound of a bad fan belt screaming up the parking lot. She had taken to sleeping with a hammer close by; it was in her hand before she knew she was awake and then her bare feet hit the tiles running. Slivers of light came through the plastic covering the windows in the West Hall as the car came right up close to the lobby. Car doors opened and slammed. Crouched low, peering through the plastic, Ana couldn’t make anything out beyond the blinding headlights, but she could hear voices. Younger than the sort Mason ran with. Jack’s? But no, she could hear a female voice mixed in the others and there had been no girls allowed in the Kellar kingdom. Just a bunch of random teens then, come to fuck around at Freddy’s in the middle of the night, as one does in a small town without cows to tip.

They had clearly been here before, enough to know the doors were new. After a short conference, one of them reached for the handle because apparently the kid thought someone would take the time and trouble to install heavy-duty doors but not to lock them. He let out a yelp, then an unsteady laugh, and said in a tone that was trying for outrage to cover the unease, “It bit me!”

Several figures crowded closer. The bluish light of a cell phone came on at the center of their huddle. Someone said, “Holy shit, man, you’re really bleeding.”

“It’s the ghost of Billy Blaylock,” the girl among them declared in her I’m-not-just-cute-but-also-badass-tee-hee voice. “He wants to drink your blood.”

Billy Blaylock? Her surprise over the fact that the local hooligans knew about her uncle melted almost immediately into profound annoyance that they had appropriated his death into some ridiculous urban legend, like that of the hungry ghosts of miners in the quarry and secret experiments out at the abandoned military base. 

The group laughed a little, but the guy really was bleeding, so they all piled into the car again and drove off to find less injurious fun. That fan belt really needed to be looked at.

As soon as they were gone, Ana went around and double-checked all the doors to make sure they were locked. She met Freddy doing the same thing and of course, he took one look at her and told her to put some beaver dam clothes on or go back to bed. She didn’t feel a strong urge to be obedient, but she did have work in the morning, so she went back to bed and dreamed of crawling endlessly through the maze in the ceiling, pursued by the bleeding corpse of a crying child.

Not a restful night, in other words. The morning that followed started with a fistful of baby-wipes in lieu of a shower, so her bar of expected delights for the day was already set pretty damn low. And yet, it almost immediately got worse when she went to the Donut Hole on the way to work for a cup of coffee and a box of glazed breakfast. There was a short line, as there always was, even at this hour, and all the maple bars were gone. Still, she couldn’t have spent more than ten minutes inside and when she came back to her truck, there under the windshield wiper was a postcard of scenic Mammon Canyon. 

Well, she was about due, wasn’t she? It had been almost a whole week since she’d last gotten one of these. No signature, naturally, but Alma 5:23 was written on the back in what looked like eyebrow liner. Interesting that her poison pen pal apparently kept a stack of postcards with her at all times, but couldn’t be assed to keep an actual pen around. Ana climbed up behind the wheel, secured her donuts and coffee, then pulled out her phone so she could see just how she was being insulted this time. 

_Behold, will they not testify that ye are murderers, yea, and also that ye are guilty of all manner of wickedness?_ Nice. So much classier than fuck you. She really had to frame the rest of these and hang them up with the first one. Several people had gone through a lot of effort to make sure she knew she was sincerely unwanted and it was just plain disrespectful to lug them around in her day pack like a bunch of forgotten receipts.

Then there was work, which was not difficult, but which made it pretty high on her Shit List just by association with Shelly and all his unsubtle side-stepping sexism and general belt-hitching nonsense. But she only had to deal with him when she was in the office, which usually meant a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes in the evening and maybe an hour around lunch if they all ended up at Gallifrey’s at the same time, and since there weren’t a whole lot of places to eat in town, that happened a lot.

But for the most part, the job itself was not bad. Except that it was all outdoors-work. In Mammon. Where it was fifty degrees at midnight, but ninety by noon, with ninety percent humidity, a combination that meant one hell of a storm was brewing. The sun had barely risen before it was overtaken by bruise-colored clouds that went on to swallow the rest of the sky, belching thunder under its breath while it waited for the perfect moment to open up and puke the storm all over her.

That moment came just after Ana finished watering all sixty-two hanging flowerpots in the downtown area. As she was rolling up the hose for the last time, she felt the first drops hit her arms, hot and sour as piss. Then all the rest of them, a punishing spray that plastered her hair to her scalp and her clothes to her skin in the few seconds it took her to reach the shelter of the work truck and climb in.

She and Morehead sat together, slowly stinking up the cab with the smell of hot, wet bodies and the ever-present undertone of the quarry until the air was thick enough to chew. Neither spoke. They would have had to shout to even have a chance at being heard over the deafening noise of rain drumming on the truck’s roof. 

When it finally slackened enough to allow conversation, Ana gestured at the water pouring across the windshield and said, “Does this change our workload any?”

“You can’t mow in the rain,” he replied cheerfully. Everything Jimmy Morehead said was cheerful. It drove her fucking crazy.

So they drove back to the office, just in time to discover Sheriff Zabrinsky had dropped by to ask about Slater, whose folks hadn’t seen him since the Fourth of July. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he concluded, exchanging belt-hitches with Shelly. “It’s no secret he’s been unhappy with his, shall we say, financial obligations? Baby-Mama says he came to see her on the Fourth, brought flowers. Sounds like a case of the guilts to me. Probably lit out, looking for a new start in parts unknown. Can’t be a coincidence that Matthew Wyborn also left town. Yep,” he said, nodding at Morehead’s look of surprise. “Lives two doors down from me, could hardly hide it. Middle of the night on Monday, the Calloway boy took him out to the bus station in St. George. Didn’t tell him where he was headed, just that he wouldn’t be back. Mark my words, Will Slater was waiting to pick him up wherever that bus dropped him off. They’ll be back, soon as they realize the real world is nothing like a buddy sitcom, but their folks are worried, so if either of them calls wanting that last paycheck, you let me know.” 

And off he went, another couple of runaways in Mammon, case closed. She should be glad, considering how deeply entangled she was in that mess, but it bothered her nonetheless. She guessed the sense of urgency faded after the first two or three hundred missing people, but still…

“Storm catch you?” Shelly asked, shuffling papers around on the reception desk to prove some of them were still working. “Might as well go home then. I got nowhere else to put you. Morehead, stick around.”

Ana wasn’t going to argue with a half-day, especially not in the mood he was in, or for that matter, the mood she was in. She left, intending to go straight to Freddy’s and peel out of her soaked clothes, but when she reached Gallifrey’s, she discovered she actually wanted hot coffee and a decent meal even more than she wanted to be dry. She parked as close to the doors as she could get without stealing a handicapped slot and went inside, never even noticing who was parked just two cars down from her truck, but as soon as she stepped into the diner, her eye went right to the booth over which Mason Kellar presided with three of his boys…and one of them was Trigger-Man.

The run from her truck to the door of Gallifrey’s had wetted her down again, so Mason’s other boys were mostly interested in the front of her t-shirt, but Trig and Mason himself looked her in the eye. Mason’s indifference was not comforting. She’d seen him look indifferent plenty of times, most memorably just before and after beating a man to death with his bare fists.

Trig looked away first, picking at the fries on his plate and rubbing sullenly at the side of his face, which was still bruised. He said something short and sweet. Ana was not a lip-reader, but she knew “Bitch” when she saw it. Mason did not immediately respond, but when he did, it was to wipe his hands on his shirt, eat one more fry, and get up.

“Good gracious, look at you!” Lucy had stopped on her way to or from a table to stare at Ana. “You look like a drowned owl!”

“I feel like one,” said Ana, trying not to notice as Mason and his minions walked toward her. He wouldn’t do anything here, she told herself. He was stupid, but not stupid enough to go at her in public, in front of witnesses. “Can I get something to go?”

“The usual?”

“Usual?” Ana echoed, no less aware of Mason bearing down on her, but amused in spite of herself at the idea that she’d been somewhere long enough to have a ‘usual’.

Lucy took that for an order and turned to holler at the kitchen, “Betty and fries! No coffee up, but I could brew some. If you’re staying.”

All enthusiasm for sitting down and enjoying a leisurely lunch had died at the sight of Mason. Ana shook her head, stepping aside to allow Trigger-Man to walk right past her without looking at him. 

“It’ll be right up then,” Lucy promised, moving behind the register to ring Mason up. There was some argument among his boys as to how much each owed. They did not leave a tip, but they did leave, and Lucy seemed happy enough with that as she watched them go. It made Ana wonder how many times she’d missed seeing that same expression directed at her own back as she walked out that door.

In gentle counterpoint to this private speculation, when her food came, it came with an extremely thick slice of blueberry-peach pie. “On the house,” Lucy replied dismissively when Ana brought the oversight to her attention. “You like a mite pulled thin these last few weeks. Besides, it’s Sunday’s. After tonight, it’ll just go home to the chickens anyway.”

Ana managed an uncomfortable thanks, paid (and made sure to leave a tip that covered the cost of a slice of pie and then some), and left. No sign of Mason in the parking lot and no sign of damage to the truck, so she drove to the gas station to pick up more ice for the cooler and some Monsters to put in it, and there was Mason.

‘Means nothing,’ Ana told herself, staring at the unmistakable powder blue Crown Vic in the otherwise empty lot. It was a small town and, as she’d once told Rider, they were bound to meet now and then. 

She couldn’t just sit here and wait for him to leave without sending the clear signal that she was afraid to meet him. Gritting her teeth, Ana pulled up and parked next to him, got out and went in, freshly drenched.

The old-time brass bell over the door sounded the alert when she walked in, but Mason’s boys, scattered throughout the store, were too intent on scavenging for junk food to notice. Mason himself, however, was waiting on the guy behind the counter to locate his brand of cigarettes on the shelf, a task that seemed to involve first learning how to read, and there was no avoiding him. 

He ignored her as she collected her few goods, perused the clingy-wet dimensions of her shirtfront idly when she joined him at the counter, paid for his cigarettes and finally turned all the way around and faced her.

Ana did not flinch. She waited, tense and ready.

“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, pointing at her face prison-style, with his eyes alone.

The same question she’d put to Trigger before she’d let him go. Coincidence? “Put up a roof last weekend,” she told him, her voice steady and expression neutral. 

“Looks like you pulled it down on your head.”

Ana shrugged, using the gesture to set her ice on the counter for the clerk to think about ringing up. “You get banged up in my business.”

He huffed a laugh that never touched his unblinking, shark-cold eyes. “Yeah. Mine, too. Guys,” he said, walking away without another word to her. “Get your shit and let’s go.”

His dogs came at his call and the last thing Ana wanted was to have them all out in the lot ahead of her, so she put her money down and got the hell out of there.

She drove around the block, waiting to see what direction Mason’s tail-lights turned when he pulled out after her, but he went straight on down Primrose, not heading for home but not heading for Old Quarry Road either. Whatever he was up to, Ana could only wish him well as long as it kept him away from her. And objectively speaking, there was nothing about the brief encounter to give her any reason to think he knew the bruises on Trig’s face and hers were connected. Any twinges she had felt in that direction were just paranoia.

All the same, she thought it had been a while since she’d last checked on things at the house. Maybe she ought to take a trip up Coldslip and just, you know, see if there were any warnings written in pig’s blood on the walls.

So thinking, she set off through the blinding sheets of rain, so reminiscent of the storm that had greeted her on her first night back in Mammon. Indeed, when she climbed the last low hill before the tall bluff on which the pizzeria squatted, she looked out and saw much the same view—frothing water washing over the road and out in muddy rivers toward the open mouth of the quarry. It wasn’t bad yet, but it might be by the time she went all the way up to Aunt Easter’s. She could easily get stranded there.

“Listen to you,” Ana muttered to herself, eyeing the falls sluicing down through the trees for some indication of how strong the current was. “Stranded in your own damn house.”

She had a point, but on the other hand, Freddy’s was right here.

“Yeah, and it’ll still be here when you get back.”

If Mason and his boys had been up to trash the house, going up to stare at the damage now wouldn’t do any good.

“Fuck that. If they broke out some windows, all this rain is getting in. You already have to replace most of the carpets in that place. You want pull the fucking floor up too? Now get your thumb out and go!”

Reluctantly, Ana obeyed, easing down the hill and onto Old Quarry. Water lapped up against her tires, but it wasn’t high enough yet to splash over the runner. She drove, testing for traction, and found it discouragingly good. With a last longing glance at Freddy’s high on Edge of Nowhere, Ana shifted into all-wheel-drive and forged through the storm.

Once she’d made it to the foot of Coldslip Mountain, the worst was behind her and honestly, the worst was not that bad. Yet. 

‘Make it quick,’ she told herself, pushing the speed around the climbing hairpin turns. ‘Get in, get out and get home.’

It was scarcely two when she reached Aunt Easter’s driveway, but already dark as dusk. She saw the first fork of lightning when she pulled up close to the walkway, but it hit close enough to fill her nostrils with the fried-sky smell of ozone even through the truck’s closed windows. Thunder followed immediately, _crackle_ -BANG, hurting her ears and shaking the plastic bag on the seat beside her with the force of the soundwaves.

“In and out,” Ana reminded herself, although she couldn’t hear her own voice over the storm. “And then get your ass home.”

Nodding grimly, she took a last deep, dry breath, then pushed the door open against the wind and ran for the front door. Her boots pounded on the paving stones, overgrown again; for a moment, she was big-Ana, distractedly thinking she had to get up here when the rain stopped and mow, and then she was small-Ana once again, racing up the walkway with David right behind her, their arms loaded with groceries, and Aunt Easter laughing as she followed…

Then she was on the porch and under the shelter of the eaves. Memory faded. Ana shoved the lingering stain of it away as she wiped water from her eyes and stumbled to the door. It was still locked, which was a good sign, and when she turned the lights on inside, everything seemed to be as she’d left it. No broken windows, no spray-paint on the walls…but there was a bad smell coming from the kitchen. 

There, beneath a cloud of fat black flies and a living blanket of maggots, she found the trash can under the sink stuffed with paper buckets thick with congealed grease and chicken bones, bakery boxes full of doughnut crumbs and ants, deli bags with the remains of fried burritos and potato wedges, and plastic trays marked with discount stickers that had subsequently been blacked out. She recognized the cheap packaging used by the gas station’s dubious food corner, but she sure couldn’t remember ordering it, let alone in these quantities. Someone had been here. Someone had left this for her to find. Someone who seemed to have gotten it directly out of the dumpster in back of the gas station and then brought it here and…put it in the kitchen trash can instead of scattering it around the whole house? It sent a message, all right, she just wasn’t sure what it was, and wasn’t that the scariest thing about Mason Kellar? Not the certainty of violence, but that he never let you see it coming? 

Ana took the trash out and sprayed the kitchen down with bug-killer, then went upstairs, intending to do a more thorough search of the house, but she only got as far as Aunt Easter’s room, which she knew she had left absolutely empty except for some basic toiletries in the bathroom, and which now had several sheets of paper tacked up on the wall, each one with a single letter drawn on to read WELLCUM HOM I MIST YOU, with lots of hearts and stars and smiley faces, all of it in crayon. All of it in _purple_ crayon.

She stood in the doorway a long, frozen time as the thunder laughed.

“David could spell better than that,” she whispered at last, but it was no good. He’d gotten her with that one. In all the time she’d known him, which admittedly wasn’t much in the great scheme of things, Mason Kellar had never so much as hinted he knew anything about her family. If he was running around with Rider when they were kids, he would have been in California when she was growing up here; he couldn’t even know David.

But then there was his mother, who’d always had plenty to say even when Ana was right there to hear it and apparently had even more to say when she wasn’t around. Had this been her idea? The tattooed tramp in tight jeans had played too rough with her son’s friends, so here’s what you do? There’d always been an element of psychological terrorism to her teaching methods back in the day, but Ana couldn’t believe the old bitch had thought this up, any more than she could believe Mason had. Unfortunately, the town was full of easy suspects and Ana would probably never know who was really behind it.

Welcome home, indeed. Welcome home, we missed you. We missed having someone around we could shove into mud puddles and then tease for being dirty. We missed our little whipping girl, the one we could punch any time we wanted because we knew she was afraid to tell where the other bruises came from. We missed that pretty, slappable face. We missed that silent, secret-keeping mouth. The Blaylock women have always been such biddable victims.

And then she was running. She did not tear down the drawings first in a fit of defiance. She wasn’t sure she even shut the door when she bolted through it. She did not see the storm that fought her for control of the truck. She had no thoughts, only the animal instinct to run home and shut out the world that would not…stop… _hurting_ her!

At Freddy’s, she beat on the loading dock door, but no one answered. If she were in a rational frame of mind, this would be understandable—the animatronics were probably performing, the storm was crazy-loud, and Freddy wouldn’t be expecting her at this hour anyway—but she was far from rational at the moment. All she knew was that she had been shut out again, from the only place she had left to run to. Now even her imaginary friends had turned their backs on her.

She knocked until her hand hurt and the force of the rain made the rest of her hurt, and finally trudged around the side of the building to the only place in the pizzeria with uncovered windows, the gym. She leaned up against the glass and waited, her face upturned to the sky, drowning a little with every breath.

The storm gathered and gathered and endlessly gathered, building toward some unthinkable, world-ending climax. Thunder had become a constant thing, now muttering and now roaring, but always there. There was no sun, only lightning in smudgy flashes of pale grey behind the heavy clouds. Now and then, a bolt slipped, burning the jagged path it had taken to earth across Ana’s unblinking eyes. She watched without wonder or fear or anything at all.

She thought about David. She thought about Aunt Easter, the one she remembered, the one she was just learning about, the one she’d never know. She thought about Mason and his mother, about Wendy Rutter, Big Paulie, Shelly, and all the rest of them, all their many faces blurred together into one sneering, suspicious, hateful whole. The face of Mammon. Eventually, she stopped thinking at all.

Something tapped at the window behind her. She didn’t hear it, but felt its sharp vibrations in the glass where her head rested. When she looked, there was Freddy, glaring. He pointed toward the back of the building and walked away.

He had a more convoluted path to follow, yet he got there before her and had the door up and one hand out to help her climb onto the dock. She ignored him to instead fetch her day pack and her dinner from the truck, and climbed up without his help. He said something, then shut the storm out, set the locks, and said it again: “WHAT. HAPPENED.”

“Nothing.”

“YOU’RE. NOT. SUPPOSED. TO. BE. HERE. THIS. SOON.”

“Can’t work in the rain either. I got sent home. So I went home.” Her voice tried to crack; she refused to let it. “I hate this town, Freddy. I missed it, but I hate it and believe me, the feeling is extremely mutual.” 

Dropping the bag from Gallifrey’s in the sink—maybe she’d eat it later, but at the moment, she cared about the lifecycle of the blue-tongued skink more than she cared about food—Ana went to the cupboard and opened it, only to close it again. She couldn’t get drunk and she couldn’t get high, not when she still had a possible visit from Mason to worry about.

“I hate this town,” she said again, trudging out—sober—into the dining room where Bonnie and Chica danced the afternoon away onstage. “I understand the hate. I get it. I do. They’ve got to hate someone and I’m convenient. If that was all they did, I wouldn’t even care. It’s the cruelty I can’t get my head around. I mean, they broke into my house. They stood there in that house and they had to see…I have nothing. I have _nothing_. I have…broken walls where there used to be pictures and empty rooms where there used to be people, and now I have nothing and they saw that, Freddy,” she said, swinging around to point a shaking finger at him where he stood, silent and listening. “They saw it and they said, ‘There has to be some way to make this worse!’ And there was. You know? Kudos to them, they found a way. There’s the…the pioneering Mormon spirit you hear so much about. Perseverant as all fuck.”

She banged out through the door and into the hall, hearing it scrape open again behind her as she reached the Party Room, her room now. She shut that door on him next, thinking maybe the No Bears clause on her sign would keep him out and maybe it wouldn’t, but if she had to tell him to leave her alone, she’d just start crying. No one wanted to hear her whining.

Safe in the concealing black, Ana stripped out of her wet clothes and found dry ones. She wrung out her hair, but still felt it soak the back of her shirt almost immediately. She needed a towel. All the towels were in the break room where she used to have her shower but didn’t have one now, because she was waiting for Mason to come kill her and he was taking his rose-sniffing time, wasn’t he?

Angrily, she felt around until she found her lantern and switched it on. The light it gave her was dimmer than it had been. Battery failing. It probably wouldn’t last the night, but what could she do about it? She’d have to go all the way to Hurricane to get one of these clunky 6-volt batteries and with the storm, she’d never make it. In retrospect, she was astonished she’d even made it to Freddy’s.

Ana picked up her wet clothes and took them and her dying lantern with her out into the hall where Freddy was waiting.

“WHAT. HAPPENED,” he asked again, following her toward Pirate Cove.

“Knock-knock,” Ana replied tersely.

He twitched hard, one arm flying up to catch at his hat before he could knock it off his own head by the violence of his spasms. “WHO’S THERE?”

“Donut.”

“DONUT. WHO?”

“Donut ask me that again or we will tell knock-knock jokes all fucking night, I am not even kidding.”

He shut up, but didn’t go, walking in her shadow all the way through the Cove, up the back end of the building, through the security office to the break room. She thought he would leave as soon as he saw her pick up a towel, but he stayed and watched the scintillating hair-rubbing floor show all the way to the end. It took a while. Freed from her braid and weighted down by the rain, her hair fell all the way to her hips and a little beyond. Drying it pulled it back a few inches, but made it ten times thicker and more unruly. She fought a brush through it a few times, then gave up and let it do whatever the fuck it wanted.

“HOW. CAN. I. HELP,” Freddy asked finally, watching her hang her wet clothes over some locker doors.

“You can’t,” she said, too sharply, then sighed. “I’ll get over it. Just go. I’m fine.”

“DO. YOU. WANT. BONNIE.”

“No! God, no. Look, I don’t want to talk and I don’t want Bonnie to feel worse because he can’t make me feel better. I just want to be in a bad mood for a while, okay?”

He looked at her for a long time, not clicking and definitely not approving, but in the end, he said, “OKAY.” And to prove he understood what he was agreeing to, he turned around. “I’M. HERE. IF. YOU. NEED. ME,” he said, limping away.

When he was gone, Ana stood under a dry roof and listened to the rain until she came to the grudging conclusion that all the fierce satisfaction that came from telling someone else to leave you alone petered out quickly once you got what you wanted. She didn’t really want to be alone anyway. She didn’t want company either, not even animatronic company. She couldn’t get high, she couldn’t get drunk, she sure couldn’t go anywhere. What did that leave?

Well, she probably had enough battery power on her tablet to watch a movie. But no, she should save that for when Bonnie was off the clock and could watch it with her. She just had to kill—she checked her watch—eight hours.

After a moment’s thought, Ana went to the quiet room and assembled her toolbox for work. When she passed Freddy in the hall on her way to Pirate Cove, he looked at it, then at her and said, “IS. THE. WOOF. OKAY.”

“As far as I know. Why? Have you seen any leaks?”

“NO. BUT. WHERE. ARE. YOU. GOING.” And before she could answer, his eyebrows flew up and crashed down and he said, “THE. PLACE. MEANT.”

“Objections?” Ana prompted, knowing damn well there were.

Freddy took off his hat to rub his brow, then his muzzle, then looked at her. “WILL. IT. HELP.”

“It can’t hurt. I mean, even if I break the thing to shit, we’re no worse off than we already are.”

His speaker let out a snorting sound. “YOU’RE. NOT. GOING. TO. BREAK. IT. AND. THAT’S. NOT. WHAT. I. MEANT.” 

“I know what you meant,” she muttered, raking a hand through her hair. She struggled briefly with her inner bitch, but was in no mood to keep up the fight for long and after a token acknowledgment that she was, yet again, arguing with a teddy bear, said, “Have you seen some of the stuff that’s painted on the back of this building?”

Freddy’s expression subtly shifted. He folded his arms. “FREDDY. LIVES,” he said evenly. “YES. I. HAVE.”

“I want you to take a moment to really get in touch with how it feels to know that this entire town thinks it’s not just okay but practically mandatory to treat you like shit. That they can do whatever they want and there is no way you can defend yourself without giving them another reason to come after you. That they can say whatever they want, and if you argue, you’re a liar and if you don’t, you admit you deserve it. Okay? You there?”

Freddy’s fan worked, steadily pulling air in and pushing it out. No other part of him moved except for the cameras in his eyes as he adjusted his focus on her. “YES.” 

“What helps?” 

It was a rhetorical question. Freddy didn’t understand those very well.

“FAMILY,” he said without hesitation.

He didn’t mean anything by it. He was incapable of meaning anything; any meaning she found in anything he said was all on her and she knew it. Still, that hurt.

She forced a smile so he wouldn’t see it and said, “Well, I’m out of luck there, aren’t I? All I have is broken machines.”

She meant the one in the basement, the one she was headed down to tinker with. But Freddy didn’t make that connection. He thought she meant the animatronics. And although she had just reminded herself they couldn’t really feel, she could see that it hurt.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she said, now that it was too late. Because it was true, wasn’t it? You could apologize for the lies and maybe be forgiven. The truth could never be taken back.

He nodded, looking around at the posters on the walls, accepting the apology without blame. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. Not his booming stage-laugh, but something low and bearish. It was the first time she had ever heard his real voice, even if it was just a laugh, and for some reason, it hurt too. 

“YOU. AND. ME. AN-N-A,” he said, still smiling. “WE’RE. ALWAYS. ALMOST. TOUCHING. AND. SOME. HOW. WE. ALWAYS. MANAGER. TO. JUST. MISS.”

“I guess it’s true what Aunt Easter always said, everyone’s got a knack. Look, I just want to get out of my head for a while. And the only way I know to do that—”

“YES. I. REMEMBER. THREE. CHOICES. AND. THEY. ALL. BEGIN. WITH. M. GO. ON,” he said, resuming his patrol. “HAVE. FUN. I’LL. BE. DOWN. TO. P-P-PESTER. YOU. IN. A. FEW. HOURS.”

“I’ll be fine by then,” she promised and made a mental note to fake it if she couldn’t feel it. “It’s just been a bad day, that’s all.”

But she was only partly right. It wasn’t a bad day, it was a bad weekend, the worst weekend of her life, and the worst was yet to come.

# * * *

Foxy was onstage when Ana came home unexpectedly in the middle of the day. He could hear her talking at Freddy out in the hall, angry but not exactly arguing, and he could hear her when she came back, or at least, he could hear the heavy rattle of her tools as she took herself down into the Treasure Cave. Only one thing she could be fixing to fix down there. 

In an instant, the boredom that so often lay over him during these long day hours fried away in a burst of whatever the hell they had instead of nerves. He imagined Freddy must be feeling much the same, although for very different reasons. Foxy didn’t give much of a fig if the power came back on or not. He should, but he’d had long years of practice widening the gap betwixt what he wanted and what he knew a better man would want, until he saw no point in even trying to cross over. No, what fired him up was that the Treasure Cave was technically within the Cove, which meant as soon as he was free to mingle with all the kiddies what weren’t here, he could go down and hunt her out. They hadn’t spoken since…well, the last time, and although Foxy wasn’t about to apologize for the kiss, he was willing to let her talk at him if it meant he could maybe try again.

But when the set ended and he was able to hop the rails and sweep the curtain aside, there was Freddy waiting for him at the top of the amphitheater stairs, eyes on and sternly slanted.

Playing dumb didn’t often work with Fred, but Foxy gave it a shot. “Ahoy,” he called, strolling toward the exiting mouth of the Cave beside the stage. “To what-t-t do I owe the pleasure?”

“LEAVE. HER. ALONE.”

Foxy shrugged, still casual, still strolling. “Only be-e-e— _eeeeeeeee_ —a minute,” he said, rubbing the speaker he’d just smacked quiet. “Say hi, see if I can lend a hook to whatever-r-r—ARR, ME HEARTIES!—she’s doing. That’s manners, that is. I’m being p-p-polite.”

“SO. AM. I,” Freddy said, unmoved. “THAT’S. WHY. I. SAID. LEAVE. HER. ALONE. AND. NOT. LEAVE. HER. ALONE. THAT’S AN ORDER.”

Rule number twenty-nine sliced through his neurons and left him locked in place on the stage. Foxy glanced at the cave—might as well be on the moon now—then up at Freddy. “I need to t-t-talk to her, mate.”

“WAIT. UNTIL. CLOSING. SHE. CAN. COME. SEE. YOU. THEN. IF. SHE. WANTS. TO.”

Old springs creaked as Foxy’s jaw clenched. “She ain’t-t-t been to see me in a week.”

“WHY. NOT.”

Foxy’s ears said things no other part of him would admit.

“TRUST. ME,” said Freddy, turning away. “THIS. IS. NOT. THE. TIME. LET. HER. WORK. SOME. THINGS. OUT. FIRST.”

And now he was leaving and his last order still stood, so there was nothing Foxy could do but go back to the deck of his ship and prop himself against the bow, ears aimed back at the empty auditorium as he walked his doubloon across his knuckles ten and twenty and two hundred times, waiting.

He had seven more sets and a goodbye left in the day, but Ana came clanking out of the cave during the eight o’clock set. While he was performing. So he still couldn’t talk to her. And she didn’t talk to him either, not even to sing along on the chorus of the _Ballad of the Flying Fox_.

She couldn’t still be mad at him, for God’s sake. It was just a kiss. And not even a good one. He was much better at the other stuff, as he’d be happy to prove if she’d just give a man a chance.

The sun went down. Foxy went dark, there on deck behind the ship’s wheel. Tomorrow, the sun would set at 8:59 and this last wait would only be a minute long, but tonight it was the full, frustrating hour, and when it finally, _finally_ ended, still there was silence.

No surprise. Bonnie would be coming awake too, and lord knew, if she wasn’t there to greet him, he’d go looking for her. Might as well get comfortable. She’d be along. The rain had slackened some over the past few hours, but it was still coming down, and if she wanted a smoke tonight, it was either Pirate Cove or stand out on the dock and get wet.

Foxy settled in.

Eleven o’clock came and went. Chica poked her head in around midnight to invite him to an ass-whupping in the arcade; Foxy politely declined for the moment, but promised to drop by later. And later it got, minute by minute by minute, until one o’clock was behind him and two fast approaching.

“She ain’t-t-t coming,” Foxy said, just to hear the words brutally echo in the emptiness. He nodded to himself, swallowing it like a bitter cup of rum, and when he felt it glowing warm in his gut, he pushed himself out of the bow and headed for his cabin.

The East Hall door creaked open.

Foxy’s carefully constructed veneer of disinterest shattered in an instant. “Finally!” he barked, digging his hook into the rail beside him and vaulting off the deck onto the padded stage below. “Thought-t-t ye were going to make me wait-t-t all night!”

“WHAT?”

Freddy. 

Foxy’s step faltered, but he was already there, so he pulled the curtain aside and peeked out, shining a dim twinned spotlight over the empty auditorium. Freddy, at first invisible against the darkness of the upper level, helpfully switched his own eyes on and moved to the rail. He was alone, not that Foxy would ever expect Ana to be strolling along with him, but still…

“WHAT’S. WRONG,” Freddy asked.

“Nothing. Thought ye were Ana, is all.” Foxy winced a little, knowing the answer and knowing he was going to say it anyway. “She still here?”

Freddy grunted a surprising yes, adding, “THE. ROAD. IS. WASHED. OUT.”

“Good. I mean, oi, tragic, that,” he amended as Freddy squinted at him. “Reckon I’ll wander around-d-d and see if’n I can bump into her.”

“SHE’S. SLEEPING.”

Something inside Foxy let out a whirring little scrape, as if his disappointment were a physical thing, a gear with broken teeth. “Eh? Ye sure?”

“HOURS. A-GO-GO. A-GO-GO,” he repeated with an eyeroll, shaking his head. “WRONG. FILE. WHY. CAN’T. WE. DELETE. OUT. OF. DATE. WORDS. DISCO. IS. NEVER. COMING. BACK. AGO,” he said with a growling nod. “SHE. TURNED. ON. A. SHOW. TO. WATCH. WITH. BONNIE. WHILE. SHE. ATE. DINNER. AND. FELL. A. SLEEP.”

“A show?” echoed Foxy and had to laugh at the prissy outrage in his voice. What show could possibly be more engaging than an evening with the dashing captain of the Flying Fox? Except maybe all of them.

“LIKE. A. T. V. SHOW,” Freddy was explaining. “SHE. WATCHES. THEM. ON. HER.” Freddy mimed something small and squarish while clicking through files in search of a word that plainly meant Ana’s tablet. Finding none, he fell back on the word they had first been taught for that particular device, back when there had only been one in the whole world and no real need for words: “CHRESTOMATHY.”

“Gets shows on it, d-d-does she?” asked Foxy, who didn’t care. Not about that, anyway. Big-eared jealous git.

“IT. GETS. EVERYTHING,” Freddy said indifferently. “IT’S. A. T. V. IT. HAS. THE. INTERNET. IT. TAKES. PICTURES. IT. PLAYS. GAMES. AND. MUSIC. IT’S. A. TRUE. MIRACLE. OF. THE. MODERN. AGE. SO. OF COURSE. SHE. FELL. A. SLEEP. IMMEDIATELY.” He turned away, continuing on his patrol. “I’M. NOT. REALLY. SURPRISE! SHE’S. HAD. A. HARD. DAY.”

“Aye. Hard span o’ days.” Foxy shrugged, scratching thoughtlessly at his chest until Freddy’s sharp glance called his attention to what his hook was doing. He said, as if to excuse his lapse, “She get-t-t the power working yet?”

Freddy shook his head, already scanning the cargo at the back of the room, restless to be on his way. “GIVE. HER. TIME. IF. SHE. DOESN’T. HAVE. IT. ON. BY. SUNDAY. I’LL. EAT. MY. HAT.”

“Never happen, mate. Three d-d-days?” 

“YOU. HAVEN’T. SEEN. HER. WORK.” Freddy reached the other end of the room and walked on, calling his last words—“LET. HER. SLEEP. CHICA. IS. IN. THE. ARCADE. IF. YOU’RE. BORED.”—as he switched off his eyes and disappeared into the dark.

Eh. Might as well. Wasn’t like he had anything else to do tonight.

But when Foxy left Pirate Cove, somehow he managed to walk right past the back hall that led to the arcade and clear across the building, ending up in the doorway of the dining room. Empty. Hadn’t Freddy said Ana was curled up with Bon?

Well, all right. There was a precedent here. Where did Bonnie like to go to do his curling up?

Foxy hadn’t noticed Ana’s territorial sign missing from the dining room until he saw it taped to the window inset on the party room door. Apparently, she’d gone and moved herself in. Nervy little thing. And Freddy had let her, which was even more surprising.

There was a little margin of glass around the sign, almost like a frame. As it was the perfect width for peeking through without being seen, Foxy peeked. He liked to think of himself as an obliging chap.

He saw Bonnie first, propped up in the corner of the small party stage, Ana’s tablet throwing a flickering bluish glow upwards across his expression of queasy fascination. It was the only light in the room and it didn’t illuminate much beyond Bonnie, which was surely the reason it took such an embarrassingly long time for Foxy to notice that Bonnie held the tablet in his left hand, left arm balanced on his bent knee. Bonnie had amazing dexterity in his left hand where his guitar was concerned, Foxy could admit that, but in all other respects, he was solidly right-handed. And at the moment…Bonnie didn’t appear to have a right arm at all.

Because that was the side Ana was snuggled up on, Foxy realized. Ana with her hair all loose and tumbled wild, hiding her and Bonnie’s arm both. With her face turned to his chest and her limbs folded in around her curled body, she was all but invisible there. Only Bonnie’s fingers, weirdly disembodied there in the midst of all that shadow-dark hair, hinted at her presence as he strummed on the barely-glimpsed shape that must be her arm.

Bonnie, oblivious to the eyes on him, winced elaborately at whatever he was seeing on the tablet’s little screen. Through the door, Foxy’s keen microphones picked up his low mutter, “Jeez, baby, why d-d-do you watch this stuff?”

Lily-livered giglet. Beautiful girl cozied up practically in his lap and there’s himself, shivering over a little fake blood and guts. What in the hell did she see in him? But he couldn’t stand here and watch Bon be a jellybone all night. Wherever Freddy was, it wouldn’t take him long to show up here. Reluctantly, Foxy stepped back from the door and looked again at the sign pasted over it. No bears, bunnies welcome…not a word about foxes.

Or chickens, he reminded himself and headed for the arcade, where Chica was whiling away her own lonely hours. She seemed surprised to see him, but it was always a pleasant surprise with her, never a surprise and then a pleasure insisted upon more than seen.

“IT’S SO GREAT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!” she chirped, offering him the skee-ball she’d been winding up to throw. “DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME WITH ME?”

“Aye, I’m thinking handball t-t-tonight, lass,” he said. “Thinking I might-t-t even beat ye.”

And he did. Although neither of them kept track of points anymore, he had a feeling he beat her three times over. It was the first win he had over Chica in months, if not actually years, but it came easy. All he had to do was pretend the ball was Bonnie’s face.

 


	30. Chapter 30

# CHAPTER THIRTY

It stopped raining sometime in the night, but Ana was not fooled. The storm was not over, merely catching its breath. She took advantage of it while she could however, making the run to Hurricane only through the combined powers of all-wheel drive and mulish determination. She saw no one at all on the flooded roads, which was not surprising, as it turned out, because they were all at the WalMart. A simple grocery-and-battery run took nearly four hours, but then she was back in the basement at Freddy’s, working on the condenser. 

The next time she raised herself out of that other-world where everything was metal and wire and all the parts fit together only one way to make a working whole, it was almost two in the afternoon. For hours, she had been unaware of her body except as its limitations correlated to the work she wanted it to do. Now a litany of physical complaints registered all at once, each convinced it was the most pressing and needed all her attention. She was hot, sweaty, filthy, thirsty, had a headache, a backache, a buttache, sore knees, dry eyes, dry mouth, an empty stomach and a painfully full bladder, and also, she might be going a little crazy because she had brought only three lights down here and they were all three in front of her trained on the condenser and yet she could see her shadow.

Ana puzzled over this for way too long before arriving at the conclusion that this didn’t mean she was crazy. It meant she wasn’t alone.

“If you’ve come to kill me, do it now, before I have to stand up,” she said.

Freddy’s grunt was at least half-growl. “THAT. ISN’T. FUNNY.” 

“I’m not completely sure I’m joking.” Ana shifted with effort from a sitting position to a kneeling one, and from there, groaning, onto her feet. “How long have you been watching me?”

“ABOUT. AN. HOUR. THIS. TIME.”

“This time? There were other times? Sheesh, I was good and out of it, wasn’t I? Any visitors while I was playing around down here with my fucking back to the door like a dumbass begging to be murdered?”

Freddy shook his head, watching her gather her tools. “ARE. YOU. DONE. FOR. THE. DAY.”

“With this, yeah. It’s fixed.”

Freddy’s reaction to this news was underwhelming to say the least. She’d seen this bear—well, okay, not _this_ bear, but clearly a bear with most of his same programming—gush over some crayon scribbles like the kid had presented him with the frigging Mona Lisa, but single-handedly repair the only cosmic energy condenser on Earth and what did she get? A nod. Just one. With his eyes only half open and completely level. Look up callous disregard in the goddamn dictionary and that was the picture to accompany it.

“‘Holy shit, Ana, are you sure?’” she asked herself dryly. “‘That’s amazing. I am legit amazed. My bearish flabber is fucking gasted. If I had a gold star, I’d give you one. If I had two gold stars, I’d give me one for believing in you so hard.’”

“ARE. YOU. DONE.”

“Not yet, give me a second. ‘And am I happy about this? Why, I’m jubilant. Delighted. Positively adlubescent. I’m as happy as a clam in high tide and pleased as a pig in warm shit.’”

“COLORFUL.” 

“‘I am so proud of you,’” said Ana, flipping some switches and giving the primer a few good cranks. “‘Of course, I knew you could do it all along, but it’s still damned impressive. I appreciate all the work you’ve done, but this? This is really above and beyond. Great job.’ Thank you, thank you, but seriously, bear, shut up. I need to listen.” Beneath her hand, the primer grip had begun to vibrate. Not a lot. More like resting her hand on a refrigerator than a subwoofer, but it was there. She gave it one more crank, to grow on, so to speak, then returned it to its starting position and resumed packing up her toolbox. “Okay, let’s go. Can you grab some of this so I don’t have to make two trips?”

Freddy didn’t budge. After a moment, his eyes shifted from her to the machine and then to the light bulb plugged into the wall above it. He switched his eyelight off and threw the room into absolute blackness. “IT’S. NOT. WORKING,” he said unnecessarily.

Ana sighed. “Yes it is. Turn your eyes back on and let me show you. Think of this thing as a…as a toilet. The solar panel on the roof is pulling in energy and storing it in kind of a tank up in this area. From the ‘tank,’ energy is condensed down and ends up here, in the ‘bowl.’ Then when energy is used somewhere in the building, a corresponding amount of energy is flushed out from the bowl into the pipes to fill the energy needs. Still with me, bear?”

“YES.”

“Now here’s the thing. Those pipes have been empty for a long, long time. It’s going to take a while to…sort of push the air bubbles out. That’s not exactly what’s going on, but close enough. Anyway, in the beginning, all the power that’s being condensed is being circulated right back into itself just to keep the process going. It’s a slow starter, is what I’m saying, but once it gets up to speed, power will be exploding out of that toilet like…okay, I did not think that part of the metaphor through,” she remarked. “But yeah, plenty of power, although there _is_ a problem.”

“OH?”

“Not with production,” she assured him. “Just with storage. See, this is a big building with a lot of energy needs, so it needs a big toilet, right? That arcade alone would have been one monster flush after another, as in ‘a whole herd of elephants went directly from Taco Bell to Starbucks’ kind of flush. So this is a big tank. And that? That is a tiny bowl. Stupid-tiny. Like, I legit cannot fathom how the man who could invent and construct a Tesla condenser in the first place could not see how laughably ineffective that bowl is. If this really were a toilet, like a real standard-sized toilet, the bowl would be the size of a shot-glass.”

“WHAT. DOES. THAT. MEAN.”

“A shot-glass? Two ounces. About this big.”

“I. KNOW. WHAT. THAT. MEANS. I. MEANT. WHAT. DOES. IT. MEAN. TO. US.”

“Not much, during the daytime. When the sun’s out, even on a cloudy day, that solar panel will be sucking in energy so fast, it…not to beat a dead metaphor to death, but it’s like pouring water into that bowl so fast, it’s flooding all over the floor. You can flush it as many times as you need and the tank is always full. But at night, we have a problem. Once the water in the bowl gets flushed, we have just the one tank-full to hold you over until the sun comes up. And yeah, that’s a big tank and everything, but we’re going to flush it away pretty damn quick. Now I don’t know how much power this bowl can hold yet, but I know roughly how much we’re going to use and the two are nowhere near the same.”

Freddy grunted, unconcerned.

“Easy for you to say. I’m aware that whoever designed this thing wouldn’t have wanted to defrost the freezer on a nightly basis, so there must be enough juice to get by until morning…but not much more, and it’s things like the air conditioning that he would have considered a non-essential system to run at night. For serious now, can you please grab something here before I drop it all?”

Freddy took her toolbox.

“Thanks. And the really stupid thing is, it’s so fixable! I can almost…almost see the parts I’d need, but I don’t have the first clue how to go about manufacturing them, let alone where I’d get the raw materials. So we’re screwed in that regard. We’re just going to have to budget our energy needs at night, although damned if I know how. There’s no control panel here, no breaker box upstairs…I don’t think I’ve even seen light switches, so there’s no way to manually regulate energy use except to unplug stuff we don’t need at night.”

“THE. BUILDING. GOES. INTO. NIGHT. MODE. AUTOMATICALLY.”

“At sundown?” 

“AT. MIDNIGHT.”

“Eesh. Why so late? To clean up, of course,” she answered herself before he could. “I keep forgetting this all started out as a restaurant.”

Freddy grunted softly, heading for the door. “SO. DO. I.”

She followed him into the maze, still distractedly scowling. “I’m sure we’ll work it out. It’s just that until we do, power’s going to be tight around here after dark.”

The two of them walked in silence for several minutes before he suddenly said, “I’M. NOT. YOU. KNOW.”

“I’m not you…what?” Baffled, Ana wrenched her head out of the condenser where it had been wandering, and replayed the last words spoken. “You’re not what? Tight? Jesus, Freddy, do I _want_ to know that about you?”

“MIND YOUR MANNERS. I. MEANT. NOT.” He clicked through a few files, grumbling to himself, and suddenly blurted, “PREPARE TO B-B-BE AMAZED-D-D!” 

“What?”

“I’M. NOT. AMAZED,” he said, speaking each word even slower and with more care than usual. He grumbled some more, nodded once, and went on, “YOU’RE. VERY. SMART. AND. VERY. GOOD. AT. YOUR. JOB. YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU PUT YOUR MIND TO. I. HAVE. TO. SAY. THAT. A. LOT. BUT. I. MEAN. IT. WITH. YOU.”

As always, when hit by an unexpected compliment, Ana’s brain went blank. She didn’t know what to say, so she said, “I didn’t really fix it. It wasn’t actually broken. More like a clock that had wound down. All I did was take it apart and clean everything.”

“DON’T. BE. LITTLE. YOUR. SELF,” he said with a stern scowl. “JUST. BECAUSE. I’M. NOT. AMAZED. DOESN’T. MEAN. WHAT. YOU. DID. IS. NOT. AMAZING.”

“Come on, enough with this stuff,” she said uncomfortably. 

“I. CAN’T. HONESTY. SAY. I’M. HAPPY.” He walked for a while in silence, briefly allowing her to hope the conversation was over, then said, “BUT. I. CAN. UNDERSTAND. WHY. YOU. WANT. THE. POWER. BACK. ON. AND. I. DO. APPRECIATE. YOUR. HARD. WORK.” He glanced at her, making shadows spin around them in the maze. “WE’RE. ALL. OUT. OF. GOLD. STARS. BUT. I. THINK. FOXY. HAS. SOME. STICKERS. IF. YOU. REALLY. NEED. ONE.”

“Pass.”

Freddy grunted an oddly serious grunt. After a few seconds, he suddenly said, “ARE. YOU. TWO. FIGHTING.”

“What? No,” she said, genuinely taken aback. “I haven’t even seen him since…oh.”

“SINCE. YOU. FOUGHT,” Freddy guessed.

“It wasn’t a fight.” Ana snorted, remembering that first startling kiss and the fiercely deliberate one that followed. “Quite the opposite.”

Freddy stopped walking abruptly enough that she nearly bumped into him. He turned his head, then his body. “WHAT. DOES. THAT. MEAN.”

“It means we didn’t fight.”

His glowing eyes narrowed. “WHAT. ELSE. DOES. IT. MEAN.”

“Nothing.”

“AN-N-A. GOOD BOYS AND GIRLS DON’T TELL LIES.”

Ana shrugged as expansively as the narrow confines of the maze’s passageways allowed. “Nothing happened! We were talking. He crossed a line. I set him straight. End of story.”

“REALLY.”

“Yes, really! I haven’t been avoiding him, I just got busy with other stuff. If he’s upset because he hasn’t seen me, maybe he should leave his room once in a damn while. I’m not the one that’s hiding!”

Freddy’s answering grunt was half-suspicion, half-agreement, but he turned back around and kept walking. “YOU. SHOULD. TALK. TO. HIM. TONIGHT.”

“I should do a lot of things tonight and I’m sorry, Freddy, but Foxy’s hurt feelings does not make my list. Hey,” she said, squinting at a stalactite as she passed it. “Hey, wait up.”

Freddy paused and looked back. “WHAT?”

“Turn your eyes off.”

He did, then frowned, and the reason she could see his frown was because certain points along the carved foam cave walls were very faintly glowing.

“Told you it was working,” said Ana.

Freddy stared a moment, then heaved a sigh and turned his eyes back on.

They came to the mouth of the cave just as Foxy was finishing his set and telling all his little hearties to sail on. She heard him march up the gangplank and thump the control panel behind the ship’s wheel. Immediately, clouds of rust belched out from the curtain’s pulley system as a groaning, grinding noise echoed through the auditorium, along with what might be a song, if the singer had been bitten by a radioactive rhinoceros and was undergoing a painful transformation mid-verse.

“Jesus Christ-t-t!” Foxy yelped, metal feet scrabbling over wooden boards as he presumably jumped back, hit the deck rails and fell over them back onto the stage.

“Watch that language, Captain,” Ana called, grinning. “Supposedly, there’s kids here.”

“Ana?” Foxy came through the curtain, looking warily around at the walls, where all the plastic fish swimming through the painted sea were dimly glowing. “What-t-t have ye done, girl?” 

“WHAT. DID. I. TELL. YOU,” Freddy replied, still walking. “I. HOPE. YOU. MISSED. THE.” _click-click-click._ “CHICKENS.”

“The chickens? What…” Foxy’s ears snapped up (the right fell again, bouncing on its loose pin) and he wheeled around to stare in open-mouthed horror at the crow’s nest over the fake ship built into the back wall. As if they had been waiting for his attention, one of the animatronic crows—the headless one—twitched one wing, dropping a small shower of feathers and dust. “Ah no, the fucking c-c-crows!”

Another crow stretched out its neck and let out a cawing laugh, slowed, stretched and distorted into the stuff of nightmares. Then everything died—the crows, the lights, the curtain’s stuttering pulleys, and countless other hidden mechanisms.

“Is that it?” Foxy asked, unmistakably hopeful.

Freddy snorted.

“The system’s going to have the hiccups for a while,” said Ana. “Should be back to normal by tomorrow, though.”

Foxy performed the first facepalm Ana had ever seen with a hook instead of a hand. “Curse ye to the d-d-depths, ye scurrilous gilpy. I’d wear yer heart-t-t for a hat if ye had one.”

“I love it when you talk like a pirate,” she replied lightly and followed Freddy from the Cove.

“WHAT. NOW,” Freddy asked, moving aside so she could walk with him and not behind him.

“Now I’m going to step outside and when I come back in, I’m going to get something to eat.”

“GOOD. GIRL.”

“After that, I guess I should work on the kitchen.”

“I. WISH. YOU. WOULDN’T.”

“You and me both, bear. I’m going to have to scrape the freezer and the cooler out before I even start to scrub them. I wonder if I still have one of those disposable hazard suits…? I don’t remember how many I got…oh well. If I have one, I’ll clean the kitchen. If I don’t, I’ll find something else to do.”

“IT’S. OKAY. TO. TAKE. A. BREAK. YOU. KNOW.”

“You’ve forgotten our little talk about Mason Kellar and his band of Merry Meth-heads.”

Freddy’s concerned frown became a scowl. “NO. I. HAVEN’T.”

“If they’re coming at all, they’re coming soon. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.”

“MAYBE. NEVER.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged away the possibility. “I think they’re coming.”

“WHY? HAVE. YOU. TALKED. TO. THEM.”

“No. I just…feel it. Like a storm.” She glanced up through the roof at the skies that were, for the moment, quiet. “Sometimes you can just feel when something bad is about to happen.”

Freddy nodded, grim-faced.

“Intellectually, I know that I can’t change the way the storm breaks. Whether I stay up or go to sleep, or hell, whether I fight back or roll over, I can’t stop what’s coming. And no one is going to care when I disappear, so…the way I look at it…if all I can do is be there, I owe it to myself to be all the way there. You know. Stay awake. Stay straight. Make ‘em work for it,” she said, deliberately closing her imagination to the pictures those words conjured. “They really don’t have that much ambition, though. Every day that they don’t show up, the chances of that ever happening goes down. It’s all about playing the odds, bear. Here we go again,” she added as another weak pulse of power stuttered through the building’s bones. 

Pipes rattled. Unseen machineries moaned. Dust belched through the vents of the long-defunct air conditioning system. Somewhere, a light bulb burst. 

And just past the signpost where Peggy Pigtails eternally waved, high on the wall, a tiny red light came on.

Ana, enjoying the quiet triumph of a rolling brown-out, did not immediately notice. Of course she saw it, but it triggered no sense of threat as it blinked in a subliminally familiar smoke-detectory sort of way until she got close enough to really see the source, as illuminated by Freddy’s glowing eyes.

That wasn’t a smoke detector. That was a camera. 

“Oh shit, I forgot all about those,” said Ana, scowling first at the camera and then at her armload of lanterns and tools. Awkwardly, she bent and let it all spill to the ground as gently as she could, then took her toolbox back, found a screwdriver, and set the rest of it down, too. “Boost me up,” she sighed.

Freddy didn’t move. “WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?”

“I need to take that down,” she explained, pointing. “Before it comes all the way on and starts transmitting my smiling face to whatever security company is monitoring it. Come on. Just give me a quick piggy-back…uh, maybe a bear-back…eesh, that means something really different now. Look, just let me climb on your shoulders. It’ll only take a minute.”

The pupils of Freddy’s eyes opened and closed as he looked up at the camera. The blinking red light dimmed and went out, but he still didn’t move.

“Freddy?”

He began to click to himself, more rapidly than when he was just searching for a word. The lenses in his eyes continued to flux, their light gradually failing as his pupils got bigger. One arm twitched, then the fingers of his other hand. He said nothing.

“This is a problem for you, isn’t it?” 

Freddy’s nod was more of a series of jerks. “RULE NUMBER TWENTY-FOUR. I. CAN’T. LET. YOU. I’M SORRY.”

“Shit. Well, listen, it’s sort of a problem for me, too. One of us is going to have to compromise and I vote it’s the one who doesn’t go to jail if someone picks up the signal from those cameras. Agreed?”

Freddy wrenched his gaze from the camera and looked at her, his pupils slowly shrinking to their usual size. “IS. THAT. YOUR. ONLY. PROBLEM.”

“It’s a pretty big one, isn’t it?”

“NO. THIS. IS. A.” Freddy clicked a few times. “CLOSED-CIRCUIT SECURITY SYSTEM. WITH.” More clicking. “REMOTE-CONTROL. OPERATION. AND. AUTOMATED PATHING. AND. MOTION-SENSITIVE AUTO-FOLLOW FUNCTION.”

“What does that mean?”

“IT. MEANS. IT. TURNS. ITSELF. ON. IT. GOES. FROM. ROOM. TO. ROOM. AT. PRE-SET. TIMES. AND. IT. FOLLOWS. WHAT. EVER. MOVES.” 

“But it could be transmitting.”

“IT. ISN’T.” 

“You just said it has remote-control operation.”

“YES. IT. CAN. ONLY. BE. CONTROLLED. FROM.” He stopped for a series of hard twitches and pupil fluctuations, then continued in a slow, staticky voice, “HERE. IN. THE. BUILDING. NOT. FROM. OUTSIDE.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I. KNOW. THE. SECURITY SYSTEM. HERE. AN-N-A. I’M. PART. OF. IT.” 

She guessed she believed him…and yet…

“I’d feel better if I took them down.”

“IT IS UNLAWFUL TO DAMAGE OR REMOVE FAZBEAR ENTERTAINMENT PROPERTY. I. CAN’T. LET. YOU. ENTER. FEAR. WITH. THE. SECURITY SYSTEM.”

“What if I put on a security uniform? I could be a licensed technician maintaining the equipment and just, you know, never get around to re-installing it.”

He closed his eyes and thought. She could actually see him trying to find a way, hammering at that internal rule-book but ultimately failing to break it. When his eyes opened again, the defeat in them was painful to see. “I. CAN’T,” he said. “IF. I. SEE. YOU. BREAK. RULE NUMBER TWENTY-FOUR. I. HAVE. TO. STOP. YOU. AND. YOU. WOULD. BE.” He clicked to himself and said, “PERMENANTLY BANNED FROM THE PREMESES.”

“What if you don’t see me? What if you were to just casually go for a walk and I were to casually get my ladder and the cameras were just casually gone the next time you came through the room?”

“I. DON’T. KNOW. IF. THAT. WOULD. WORK,” he told her with a frown. “BUT. I. KNOW. THAT. IF. IT. DOESN’T. WORK. OR. IF. I. OR. ANY. OF. US. CAUGHT. YOU. EVEN. BONNIE. WE. WOULD. HAVE. TO. STOP. YOU. PLEASE. AN-N-A,” he added, his eyelids slanting upward in helpless frustration. “I. MIGHT. HURT. YOU. I. DON’T. HAVE. MUCH. FEELING. IN. MY. HANDS. ANY. MORE.”

Ana looked at the camera, dark now and blind, but not for long. “So I’m stuck with them.”

“YES.”

She grimaced, then sighed. “Okay, so…maybe I could use them to my advantage. I could bring in a monitor and turn the security office into, you know, a security office. It would be a lot easier to keep an eye on things from one room instead of having to physically walk all over this building.”

Freddy didn’t answer.

Ana waited, uneasy, and finally nudged at his arm to make him look at her. “Sorry,” she said immediately. “Rule number six, don’t touch Freddy, but…what do you think? About the security room and the cameras?”

The lenses of the cameras in his eyes opened wide and shrank small several times while he stood motionless, just looking at her. At last, he said, “I. CAN’T. TELL. YOU. WHAT. TO. DO.”

“Since when?” she asked incredulously. “Ninety percent of everything you say to me is telling me what to do! And ninety percent of what’s left is you being pissy with me for not doing what you tell me!”

“THEN. DO. WHAT. I. TELL. YOU. NOW. AND. LEAVE. IT. ALONE. THE RULES ARE FOR YOUR SAFETY,” he said, reaching out to rest a heavy hand on her shoulder. “AND. OURS. PLEASE. I. DON’T. WANT. TO. HAVE. TO. MAKE. YOU. LEAVE.” 

“Well, we’ve come a long way, haven’t we? All right, all right.” She patted his hand, smiling to show him she wasn’t even aware of the fact that he could crush her shoulder to a meaty pudding if he wanted to. “I’ll leave the cameras alone. But if you’re wrong about them not transmitting, we’re going to have company in a big way real soon. I’ve got Mason to worry about. To get arrested for trespassing before he gets here would just be rude. And manners matter, Freddy.”

“MANNERS MATTER,” he agreed with a tired sort of smile. He took his hand back, picked up her toolbox, and continued walking, sending one last troubled glance up at the camera as he passed by.

 


	31. Chapter 31

# CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Over the next few hours, the power situation slowly stabilized and long defunct systems came on. Stagnant air began to circulate through the building’s true ductwork, while in the crawlway, rotary mechanisms squealed in protest as walls assumed their default positions. Pipes knocked and rusty water dripped from bathroom faucets. When she opened the freezer, she was met by a gust of foul yet distinctly cooler air. In the South Hall, a light came on in Miss Kitty’s Sarsaparilla Saloon and the animatronic mice within kicked their tiny heels and squeaked to the rhythm of their endless can-can. In Foxy’s Treasure Cave, stalactites glowed with eerie colored lights and the sounds of dripping water and ghostly whispers came from recessed speakers. And everywhere, little red lights on the sides of cameras stopped blinking and simultaneously switched to a steady red glow to show the master monitoring array in the basement had just come on.

Swampy was the first of the New Faces to move, turning his head as Ana walked through the dining room, following her with the burnt-out sockets of his eyes. And with Ana’s startled, “Oh _hell_ no, you did not just do that!” still echoing in the air, a sepulchral groan emanated from the lobby, followed by a chicken-fried drawl: “WELL, HOWDY YA’LL AND WELCOME TO FREDDY’S!” 

One by one, they all came to life, hinges shrieking and brittle plastic cracking as they resumed their old routines with all the single-minded, senseless purpose of a zombie horde. Soon, Peggy once again waved from her signpost and told barnyard jokes in her sweet, hayseed voice; Swampy stole swallows from his jug and heckled the show in a friendly, redneck way; in the gym, Tumble warned kids who weren’t there to beware of yetis who also weren’t there; Tux stood in his corner by the West Hall exit, regularly pretending to straighten his painted-on gloves and brushing dust from his shoulders as he waited for curious little guests to come to him with Google-able questions, ridiculously concerned with his appearance for someone whose head was just eyes and teeth mounted to a metal pole. 

As the afternoon lengthened into evening, it began to rain again, although not with the same punishing force. The storm seemed to crouch over Edge of Nowhere, bored and restless, slapping at the pizzeria now and then, but mostly biding its time. Waiting, as Ana waited, for Mason to arrive.

Shortly before nine, as the animatronics returned to the stage one last time to say goodnight and send their little guests off with a song, Ana’s wanderings brought her to the kitchen. She opened the cupboard where she kept her stash and stared in at the neat rows of bottles with real unease. It was the first time she could remember really wanting to get high and get drunk when the object wasn’t to have fun or even to relax, but just to obliviate herself. That by itself didn’t necessarily make her an addict; she had what she considered a very good reason to want to get numb, as well as the self-control and self-accountability not to do it, but the wanting scared her. If it wasn’t for Mason, she’d blast off right now, but then, if it wasn’t for Mason, would she still want to? 

She was tired, she decided, and tonight was going to be another all-nighter. She couldn’t let herself get as fogged-out as she had the last time. She could not get high, but she did need help.

She reached up into the cupboard and found the bottle with the blueberry sticker on it. Adderall, to help her focus and keep her balanced. How many had Rider sent her off with? Well, there were only four left. Ana took one, hesitated, decided she was really tired and it was absolutely essential that she have her head on tonight, of all nights, and took another. She washed them down with a Monster and continued on her aimless way. 

With Freddy on stage, it was up to her to keep watch. She had every intention of keeping a close one, but somehow, she ended up in the security office on her first round. Her camping chair was still here, so she sat and listened to Peggy out at the crossways at the end of the hall, talking to herself and laughing at her own jokes. She had a distinctive laugh, a girly giggle interrupted by a piggish oink, then another peal of prettily embarrassed giggles.

It got on her nerves much faster than it ought to.

After a while, deliberately not thinking of what she expected, Ana lifted one leg and thumped her boot down on the desk. When Mike Schmidt had done this at the Toybox, he had exposed a flip-top touch-screen computer monitor, perhaps the first the world had ever seen. When Ana did it here and now, nothing happened.

She poked around with her heel for a minute or two, then put both feet on the floor and sat forward to examine the desk with her hands and eyes. She found nothing. The desk hadn’t seen much use during its one week of operation and in the years between, vandals had found better targets than an old desk in a back room. Apart from a few scratches and scuff-marks, the surface was perfectly smooth.

Not ready to give up, Ana opened a few drawers, but only until she found Mike’s black binder tucked away inside. That was the last thing she wanted to fill her head with tonight. She closed the drawer, only to open the tall cupboard next to the desk. She looked in at the collection of assorted toys from the gift shop, photos and newspaper clippings from the lobby, the uniform she’d once worn to counteract Freddy’s no-guests-onstage rule, that old rotary-blade fan she’d found, and all the other random junk she’d collected since coming here but found herself unable to throw out, until at last her gaze fell to the Lost and Found box. She pulled it out and rummaged through the odds and ends within until her fingers brushed a familiar plastic toy.

Babycakes. She couldn’t remember tossing him in here. She brought him out, yawning in her hand, and set him back in his lookout position on the corner of the desk. Ignoring his efforts to engage her, she picked up the fan and put it on the other side of the desk, found an outlet and plugged it in. The chipped metal blades began to turn, blurring into a smudgy circle as they spun. The urge to stick her fingers through the wire cage rushed over her and as quickly ebbed away, leaving her to wonder if that was what her father…what Joe Stark felt the night he’d died? Had it not been an accident or alcohol or suicidal depression that sent him to the bottom of the canyon, but just some senseless impulse, swift and venomous as a snakebite, that made him jump. Had he screamed when he realized what he’d done or had he been too shocked to even try? Had there even been time to wish he could take it back before the rocks rose up and broke him open or had there been time enough to relive his entire life and see every regret with a clarity there had never been in life?

Had he thought of her, there at the end? That would almost be funny if he had. For ten years, they had lived less than two miles apart in this very small town, but Ana could not remember ever meeting him. She had never seen a photo of him, did not even know what he looked like. She knew more about Erik Metzger than she did about her father.

But she knew one thing. She knew Joe Stark…how did Big Paulie put it…? Opened his coin purse when he was twelve. And he could no more squirt out a baby than a rainbow. She wasn’t his kid. She was the proof his wife had been fucking around on him. If he’d thought of her at all that night, it would have been as one more reason to jump.

Why was she even thinking of him? She didn’t know him. He was nothing to her but a piece of another life, one she’d never even had.

Out in the hall, Peggy interrupted these bleak thoughts with another laugh— _Hee-hee-_ snork, _hee-hee-hee!_ —and Ana’s jaws clenched. Why the hell was that so grating on her nerves? She was a thing. An animate object, but an object nonetheless. Her soft oinking giggles and barnyard puns could not even be said to be as annoying as fingernails on a chalkboard, because that at least came from a living hand and the intention to annoy. This was more like…like a dial tone. It went on whether or not anyone was listening, and Ana couldn’t even hang up.

Or could she? Ana’s gaze lit on the small panel next to the hall doorway. Two square buttons, one grey and one red. The security room was narrow enough that she didn’t even have to get up from her chair. If she leaned out…if she reached…okay, if she scooted a few inches closer and then reached…her fingers could just touch the red—

The door slammed down, faster than the eye could follow and final as a guillotine. _Shhhnk—BANG!_ and there it was.

Ana stared at that until the shock wore off, then pressed the grey button. She expected the door to raise. Instead, a light went on in the hall, not steady and none too bright. She could see it guttering through the window but only while she held the button. As soon as she took her hand away, the light went out.

What was it Mike had said? Something about…anywhere else, you’d need power to open the doors, but in Freddy’s, it took power to keep them shut. When the power ran out, the lights went off, the doors would open, and then you’d hear him…the inhuman sound of his feet…and then the music would begin to play.

“AN-N-A.”

Ana did not scream. She didn’t breathe either. After a moment, her heart kicked back into rhythm and she relaxed enough to turn her head and see Freddy in the break room doorway behind her.

“WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she mouthed, then rubbed her mother’s choking invisible hands away from her throat and said it again, calmly. “Nothing. Giving myself the heebies, that’s all. Why? What are you doing back here anyway? What’s wrong? Is someone here?” She struggled up from the camping chair on weirdly weak legs, her heart still pounding and her mouth gone dry. “Is this it? Are they here?”

“NO. ONE. IS. HERE. EVERY. THING. IS. ALL. RIGHT.” His friendly plastic eyes shifted to the locked door of the manager’s office, then to the door to the back hall. “BUT. THE. SUN. IS. DOWN. AND. THAT. USES. A. LOT. OF. POWER.”

“Right. Okay.” She pushed the red button again and the door was gone, just that fast. “It was Peggy. That laugh of hers was getting on my nerves,” she explained, pointing out into the hall. 

Freddy’s ears swiveled. He listened.

After a long, stifling silence, she sighed and said, “I swear to God, you could hear her.”

“THEY. SHUT. DOWN. AT. CLOSING. TIME.”

“I thought you said night mode started at midnight.”

“IF. THEY. DIDN’T. SHUT. DOWN. AT. CLOSING. THERE. WOULDN’T. BE. ANY. POWER. LEFT. AT. MIDNIGHT.”

“Bonnie says they’re not real,” Ana said and then wondered where that had come from. Her thoughts felt like fish, pretty as they swam, but moving too fast to really get a good look at, and even if you managed to catch one in a net, they only lay there and wiggled, drowning in the open air. Wait, what had she been talking about? “The New Faces…right. Bonnie says they’re like place-holders for the real animatronics, only they were never installed.”

Freddy grunted. “BONNIE. TALKS. TOO. MUCH.”

“If the real ones had been installed, would they be walking around all night, like you guys?”

“YES.”

“Maybe I’d like them then,” she mused, stepping through the doorway (not without a wary upward glance) to shine her flashlight on Peggy, happily waving from the signpost. “Maybe the only reason I don’t like them now is just because of how still they are. If they moved, maybe I’d be okay with them. Or maybe if I’d just played with dolls as a kid.” 

“MAYBE.”

“Do you like them?”

“WE. DON’T. CHOOSE. OUR. FAMILY,” he reminded her. “THEY. WERE. GIVEN. TO. ME.”

“But you get to choose to love them,” she countered. “Would you?”

He, too, came out to look at Peggy. She imagined she could see a thousand emotions in his plastic eyes, but could not read his expression. “I DON’T KNOW,” he said at last. “I. LIKE. TO. THINK. I’D TRY.”

“She’s kind of cute,” Ana said dubiously, following the hook-shaped curve of the pig’s plastic braids with her flashlight’s beam. “Could be fun to have a few more girls around. We could start a strip-poker night, what do you think?”

He glanced at her, then flipped open the compartment on his arm and brought out his playing cards. While she watched, he fanned them out, shuffled them one-handed, snapped them from one hand to the other in a fluttering bridge, shuffled them again, then swiftly counted out four cards and fanned them to face her. Three aces and the six of spades. 

Ana gently took the odd man out and turned it to face him.

He looked at it for a long time.

“YOU. SHOULD. HAVE. SEEN. ME. WHEN. ALL. MY. FINGERS. WORKED,” he said at last and put his cards away. “ENOUGH. OF. YOUR. SAUCE. WHEN. WAS. THE. LAST. TIME. YOU. ATE.”

“Jesus Christ, Freddy.”

“THAT’S. WHAT. I. THOUGHT,” he said, gesturing toward the kitchen. 

She could have argued—she wanted to, an urge every bit as intense and unsettling as wanting to stick her fingers in a fan—but the words scattered away, so she just went. 

It was a long walk, much longer than it should have been. The halls at Freddy’s were rarely a straight-shot from one place to another, but they had never been like this before…or had they? She’d been so fixated on the roof for so long, was it possible she’d just forgotten how the walls jutted? Their strange angles seemed to occupy so many more than a mere three dimensions. Doors and passages she had never noticed before seemed to appear, only to vanish as she drew even with them. The paint peeled and flapped like tongues, exposing blackened sheetrock that bulged and churned, but only when she didn’t look at it. Only the floor remained solid—black tiles and white ones, their contrasting colors safely contained within lines of grout. Cracks, they used to call those, when they were children. Little Ana had stepped on all the cracks she could, but her mother’s back had never broken. She was dead now, but grown Ana stepped on them anyway, on principle.

By that time, Ana had forgotten what their destination was, so when Freddy pushed some hanging sheets of plastic aside, she was surprised and confused to find herself in the kitchen. Chica was there, holding the booklet that came with the Easy Bake Oven open to the recipe section, but she wasn’t reading it. She just stood there, her and Freddy both, staring at Ana with their camera eyes. 

The longer Ana looked at them, the stranger their familiar faces became. Not the looks of them—that hadn’t changed, but just the…the essence of them. That was weird. They didn’t need eyes, after all. You could put a camera anywhere—in the chin, in the ears, in the fingertips. They didn’t breathe through their noses. They didn’t speak through their mouths. They didn’t need their faces. They could take them right off and be fine. 

Chica looked at Freddy, one plastic eyebrow slanting upward. Freddy’s own eyebrows scraped slowly down in a frown. Neither one of them _needed_ eyebrows. Neither did Ana herself, come to think of it.

“AN-N-A. ARE. YOU. ALL. RIGHT-T-T?” Freddy asked.

Too embarrassed to ask him to remind her what she was supposed to be doing, Ana stalled by going to the cupboard.

Freddy watched her suspiciously. “WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?”

“Ibuprofen,” she told him, showing him the bottle. She shook out a few pills and popped them in her mouth, then went to her cooler and found an energy drink to wash it down. It was a Monster, the Ultra Black flavor, which was weird, because it tasted extremely purple. 

“THAT. HAD. BETTER. NOT. BE. ALL. YOU. HAVE,” Freddy said, glaring.

“No, there’s more,” Ana assured him, fishing another can out of the cooler and offering it up. “Me Monster es su Monster. Help yourself. We’re all monsters here.”

Freddy looked at the can, then at her. His eyes narrowed.

The plastic hanging over the door shifted, distracting her. When she turned, there was Bonnie, but for a moment, it was the Bonnie whose poster she’d had so many years ago, the Bonnie from Circle Drive. Then she blinked, and he was himself again, or she was herself, more likely.

“Sheesh,” said Ana and went back to the cupboard. She found her Adderall and took the last two pills. She needed to keep her head on.

“AN-N-A—”

“Relax, DARE-bear, it’s ginseng,” she said, and laughed, showing him the label on the bottle. “For energy. Got to keep my head on. There was a time I could stay up all night and still do the crossword puzzle in ink, but them days is long gone, apparently. I’m falling asleep on my feet.” She popped the last of her little blue pills into her mouth and drank off her drink to the last drop. “Crush this for me,” she ordered, holding out the can.

Freddy didn’t move, but Chica took it after a few seconds, rolling the can between her palms until she had a tiny aluminum ball, and tossed it expertly over the oven and into the trash bag in the corner.

“Two points,” said Ana appreciatively, then started and said, “Hey, you know what I should do? I should fix the oven!”

Chica clapped her hands, but she was the only one to show any enthusiasm. Bonnie’s ears went crooked with confusion and Freddy just went over and opened the cupboard.

“Why?” Bonnie asked.

“Same reason whatsisbutt climbed Everest, my man. Because it’s there. And I’ve got to do something. I have to keep my head on straight tonight. Mason is coming. I thought he was. Now I know he is. Know how I know?”

Freddy took out the bottle of ibuprofen and looked at it. He fumbled at the cap while Bonnie and Chica exchanged another set of glances, then carefully bit off the casing that capped one of his fingers and tried again with his naked bones. That time, he got the lid open. He peered into the bottle at the pills, then looked at the picture of the pills on the bottle’s label. He frowned, his speaker emitting a low, deeply suspicious grumble.

“Know how I know?” Ana asked again, slightly annoyed. It was not a rhetorical question, damn it. This was important.

Bonnie looked at Chica, who shrugged. Ears tipped cautiously forward, he said, “How do you know?” 

“Because I was thinking about my father. Not my real father, but he should have been. I thought of him but I don’t think about him, so if I thought of him, it’s because my life is flashing before my eyes. That only happens when you’re about to die. And that sucks,” she said, looking up from her preliminary inspection of the oven’s conveyor belt. “I don’t want to die here. Promise me if I do, you’ll take me out past the edge. I’d rather die in nowhere than in Mammon. Also, you’re forgetting the best reason to fix the oven. Know what it is?”

Freddy picked up the empty bottle that had formerly held little blue pills. He looked at the label—ginseng—and then at the lid, which had that puffy blueberry sticker on it. With effort, he worked the lid off, studied the nothing inside, then turned it over and shook the nothing into his other hand. He held his fingers, now lightly dusted with blue flakes and white powder, and looked again at the image of the brown capsules on the bottle’s label.

“Know what it is?” Ana repeated. “Come on, people, keep up with me.”

“WHAT IS IT?” Chica asked.

“It’s so we can have pizza again. Obviously.”

“I thought you didn’t like p-p-pizza,” said Bonnie as Freddy looked over at Ana, still rubbing his thumb and fingers slowly together.

“I fucking hate pizza! But you have to admit, it’s the perfect food. It’s got flour, which is made from grains. It’s got cheese, that’s dairy. It’s got meat sometimes. And vegetables. Mushrooms and green peppers and onions and shit like that. Tomato sauce, if nothing else.”

“A TOMATO IS A FRUIT, NOT A VEGETABLE!”

“Botanically speaking, true,” Ana agreed, removing the protective panels that had not already fallen off. Damn her, she’d thrown at least one of them away back when she’d done her first clean-and-clear, but the panels weren’t necessary to the oven’s operation anyway. Their only function was to keep loose clothes and fingers away from moving and/or hot parts. She didn’t need them, so as soon as she got them loose, she tossed them aside. Bam-bam, clatter, crash. The sounds had more dimensions than they should, almost physical ones, with colors and textures of their own. Distracting…but with effort, she refocused on the topic under discussion. “Tomatoes are fruits, but so are cucumbers, pumpkins…bell peppers. Anything that has seeds inside it is a fruit, but it’s funny that tomatoes are the only fruits pretentious dipshits keep trotting out to prove they got more plant props than their friends.”

“HEY!”

“I didn’t mean you,” said Ana distractedly, peering into the oven. “You’re programmed to say this stuff. What makes someone a pretentious dipshit is having a choice. Anyway, yeah, sure, tomatoes are fruits. Big whoop. Broccolis are flowers. Potatoes are tubers. Carrots are roots. Cabbages are leaves. All of those are just as true, but no one questions their right to be a damn vegetable. And do you know why?”

“WHY?”

“Because ‘vegetable’ is not a botanical term, it’s a culinary term.” Ana moved around to the other side of the oven and pulled those exterior panels off, too. “Which, by definition, refers to edible parts of plants with qualities that are more savory than sweet. So while it is technically true that tomatoes are fruits, it is equally true that they are vegetables, since no one eats tomato ice cream or tomato cream pie.” 

“I LOVE LEARNING NEW THINGS,” chirped Chica, but she was looking at Freddy and her eyelids were slanted at puzzled angles.

“Th-That’s actually very vaguely interesting-ing,” Bonnie remarked. “I always k-k-kind of wondered about the whole tomato fruit-t-t or vegetable thing. I mean, everyone always says it-t-t, but no one ever says why.” He paused for a moment, then said, “But-t-t you know because you used to work at a…?”

“A daycare center,” said Ana, taking Bonnie’s head between her hands and aiming his eyes at the oven. “The ladies who ran it were vegan and to their credit, they did not insist that the kids pack nothing but sprouted grain sandwiches and free-range turnips for their lunches, but they were kind of aggressively passive-aggressive about pushing their agenda. Example. Out in the yard, where any other daycare would have, you know, a playground—” Ana pointed through the wall to the playground abutting the pizzeria and all the animatronics turned their heads and looked just like they could see it. “—they had this garden and a compost heap. So instead of swinging or climbing or jumping or just, you know, running around and having a good time, every two hours, these kids would have to put on their rubber boots and garden gloves and sun hats and trudge outside to weed and water and turn compost.”

“SOUNDS LIKE FUN!” Chica chirped.

“It wasn’t. It was the antithesis of fun.”

“VOCABULARY POWER!”

“I’ll say,” said Bonnie, one ear up and the other folded forward in bafflement. “The hell d-d-does that even mean?”

“Means opposite,” said Ana, getting down on the floor to get another look at the conveyer belt from a better angle. She was having trouble keeping her eyes focused for some reason, but she didn’t need them. Her other-vision was working fine and through it, she could see that, like everything else about this building and its inhabitants, although the exterior of the oven was beat up, the insides were mostly intact. Dirty, yes, and gummed up with twelve-year-old grease, but she thought all the parts were there. Maybe replace some nuts and bolts…and the heating coils, she’d have to order those online…rethread the chain on the conveyor track and get a new belt…and then she ought to be golden.

Bonnie said her name and not for the first time, by the sound of it.

“Sorry, my man. Wool-gathering. What did you say?”

“I said, why didn’t-t-t you just say opp-p-p— _POP GOES THE WEASEL!_ ”

“Because I knew the word ‘antithesis,’” she replied and climbed out of the oven just long enough to wink at him.

He smiled, but Chica and Freddy exchanged a secret glance thick with meaning.

“Anyway,” said Ana, wriggling back under the oven, “it was the exact opposite of fun. It was worse than that, even. It was…okay, it was like if fun got hit by a bus on his way to meet his girlfriend for their one-year anniversary—”

“Wow,” said Bonnie. “That went-t-t from zero to weird in no t-t-t—TIME TO ROCK—time at all.”

“—and he spends six months in a coma, virtually brain-dead, until suddenly, he wakes up. And at first, everyone’s like, yay, fun’s back! But he’s not quite right.”

“ARE. YOU. HI!”

“No. Why?” she asked, now ducking out to give frowning Freddy a wink. “You holding, big bear?”

“ARE. YOU. SURE.”

“Of course I’m sure. Would I lie to you? Okay, maybe,” she admitted. “But Mason is coming, remember? My life is flashing before my eyes. I’m scared and I don’t want to die and have to haunt this shithole forever, so I’ve got to keep my head on, you know? I have got to stay straight. I haven’t had a drop or a puff or a happy pill in days. Lots of days. All the fucking days, bear. Tell you what, the one good thing that’ll come out of Mason killing me is that I’ll finally get to get high again.”

“You think they have d-d-drugs in heaven?” asked Bonnie.

“Jesus Christ, Bon. I know you love me, but how can you really think I’m going to heaven? Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, fun. Well, it’s subtle, you know?” said Ana, continuing her story and the inspection of the oven. “So in spite of all the little warning signs that this is not the same fun as the fun before he got hit by the bus, the doctors discharge him and there’s this big welcome home party with all his family and friends and later on, him and his girlfriend have this epic sex scene with a shit-ton of candles—”

“Ana, are you ok-k-kay?” Bonnie asked.

“Sure. Anyway, fun gets progressively darker and more withdrawn and the girlfriend’s vague concerns are growing to the point where she suddenly starts noticing he’s taken to locking himself in the basement and he’s covered all the windows down there with black plastic and maybe she starts to notice people in town going mysteriously missing—” Ana realized with a start she was describing her aunt’s house, picturing that basement, and that her idle remark of missing townspeople had illustrated itself in her mind with Mike Schmidt’s black binder. She moved on, but the pause felt noticeable and Freddy’s stare was quite a bit narrower when he looked at her again.

“Eventually, they end up at the—” _quarry_ , she was about to say, and substituted, “canyon for the epic showdown and fun plummets to his death,” realizing only after it was out and could not be taken back that she meant Mammon Canyon, perhaps the very place where her not-father had taken his last leap. Annoyed now, she said, “So it’s all over, but not really, because now fun’s girlfriend finds out she’s pregnant, but with what? Pan up from her anxious eyes to the looming clouds on a starry horizon, then fade to black and roll credits.”

The animatronics absorbed this as Ana felt around the oven’s filthy insides.

“And the moral of this story is?” Bonnie asked at last, head cocked and ears forward.

“If you run a daycare center, build a fucking playground. Okay, let’s do this! I’m going to get my tools!” Ana wiped her hands on her shirt and got to her feet, turned around, and froze.

There, on the wall just over the door to the dining room, was a camera. 

It was pointed right at her.

“What is that?” she whispered. “Who is that?”

Freddy and Chica looked up at the camera and twitched.

“Are you ok-k-kay?” Bonnie asked again.

“I’m fine. Turn it off.”

Now he looked at the camera too. His ears snapped back and up again. One arm shivered. He looked at her. “I can’t-t-t.”

“Fine. Then how do I turn it off?” 

“You c-c-can’t.”

“HERE AT FREDDY’S, WE HAVE A FEW RULES,” added Freddy. He clicked several times and spat, “RULE TWENTY-FOUR. WE. CAN. NOT. LET. YOU. ENTER. FEAR. WITH. THE. SECURITY SYSTEM. AN-N-A. WE. TALKED. ABOUT. THIS.”

“What? When? We did not! Do you see that light?” Ana asked, pointing.

All three animatronics obediently looked at the side of the camera where the little red light eternally burned. All three shivered.

“That light says that camera is working.”

“It’s on a c-c-closed circuit-t-t,” said Bonnie, twitching harder.

“You don’t know that. You can’t possibly know that. No one can know that!”

“IT’S OKAY,” said Freddy, his eyes narrowing. “BE CALM.”

“I’m calm. I’m calm I’m calm I’m calm I’m calm, _but!_ ” she interrupted herself calmly, clutching at her own shoulders to help hold her in place as she put her thoughts in order. “But this place has wifi. Under no circumstances can it be assumed that signal is not leaving this building. Anyone, anywhere, could be watching. I’ve got to turn it off. Tell me how to turn it off!”

“I can’t,” said Bonnie. “I would-d-d if I could, but—”

“AN-N-A. WHAT. IS. WRONG. WITH. YOU. WHAT. DID. YOU. TAKE.”

“LET’S SING A SONG!”

Ana looked at the camera, but what she saw was a dark basement somewhere, filled with monitors, each one showing a different room in the pizzeria. With a little imagination—and she had plenty of that, for some reason; her mind’s eye was working better than her real ones—she could even see an overstuffed easy chair, of the sort favored by old men, positioned where someone could sit and watch them all. She could even see a hand draped comfortably over the padded arm, lightly gripping a remote control. An old hand, with long slender fingers, still rough with the calluses he’d formed in his youth. The hand of a seventy-year-old kid. Because he’d built this place, but he’d never abandoned it. He’d put the cameras here. He wanted to keep an eye on it. And even if he wasn’t watching this minute, it would only take one glance at one monitor one time for him to realize things were not as he’d left them. Before she did one more thing, those cameras had to be shut off.

There had to be a way. There had to be. Had to had to had to had to.

Suddenly, as clearly as if he were standing in the room with her, she heard Mike Schmidt say, _Which key do you want?_

Where the hell did that come from? Sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. She had the feeling she should know it, though, and would know it at once if she hadn’t taken so many little blue pills.

Her frenzied, fidgety thoughts came together for one almost-clear moment: What was wrong with her? She’d taken Adderall plenty of times. This was not normal. She could sense this and a part of her was even a little alarmed, but now the cameras were on and who was watching, that was the real question, who was watching and which key did she want?

Had he had keys? He’d had that black binder, she could still remember that. All those photographs, all those papers. And the tablet, the one with the videos. But no keys. He’d said keys, but he’d been holding up…

A crowbar, she remembered suddenly. _Which key do you want_ , Mike had called, and he’d been holding up a crowbar and a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters. And she’d taken the crowbar. That was the key she wanted. 

And that key would do just fine.

Neither Freddy nor Bonnie reacted at all when she walked away. The building pitched and heaved around her, but she was perfectly steady all the way to the quiet room. When she picked her crowbar up, all the shaky lines snapped solidly into place and her last doubts disappeared. Of course this was the answer. This was the answer to _all_ the questions.

Smiling, Ana took her key to the kitchen.

Then, oddly, Bonnie said, “Uhh, Freddy?” which was funny, because of all the times he’d seen her carry tools around, he’d never said anything at all, let alone in that apprehensive tone. 

“BONNIE. CLOSE. YOUR. EYES,” Freddy said, clapping both paws over his own eyes. “NOW. BONNIE. CHICA. DON’T. LOOK.”

Ana had dropped plates a time or two in her life. She’d knocked over her share of lamps. She’d even fallen through a window once, although she’d been too high to remember it, had only seen the broken window and the cuts on her back and head to prove there’d been a connection. She had also punched people, often, or hit them with other objects. But never in her life had she taken that middle road. She had broken things, but by accident. She had hit people on purpose, but always mindful that she was hurting them and that there would be consequences. Now she had both at once—deliberate and wanton destruction without consequence.

And it was glorious.

The camera did not break as much as explode, sending shards of plastic and glass spinning back into the sink behind her and out into the dining room as far as the show stage. There was no smoke, but the smell of hot wires was immediate and soul-fulfilling. She did not break the camera, but obliterated it, demolished it, _atomized_ it and with it went all that was left inside her keeping those little blue pills at arm’s reach. She did not break the camera; she broke Ana Stark, and she kept right on breaking it until there was nothing left of either of them that could be saved. 

When she stopped to catch her racing breath, there was no more camera in the kitchen, nothing but a mounting bracket on a wall pocked with craters. She gazed around in laughing wonder, kicking at debris and hitting the larger pieces as, one by one, the animatronics peeked at her between their fingers.

“One down,” she said cheerfully and headed out into the dining room. She had only just made it through the plastic before Freddy caught her by the shirt and hauled her roughly back into the kitchen.

“AN-N-A. YOU. HAVE. TO. STOP. NOW,” he said, struggling to get a grip on her and mainly getting her shirt. “THAT’S ENOUGH. STOP. AN-N-A. BEAVER DAM. IT. BONNIE. TALK. TO. HER.”

“Ana…Ana, listen t-t-to me. Ana, look-k-k at me. Open your eyes. Chica, stay b-b-back!”

But Chica didn’t. “RULE NUMBER FOUR,” she said, waddling closer with her hand out and her sweetly smiling face full of gentle concern. “DON’T HIT. I’M YOUR FRIEND. REMEMBER ME? I’M CHICA. BE NICE. DON’T HIT.”

“Right,” said Ana, nodding enthusiastically. Rules were rules and the rules were for her safety. “Don’t hit. Don’t hit. Don’t hit.” So she brought up both her feet at once and kicked Chica in the stomach.

Chica fell over with a birdish squawk, slammed into Bonnie first and the floor second, breaking off plastic feathers and cracking the back of her head open on the tiles.

In the distraction, Ana dropped the crowbar with a clatter, then collapsed to her knees, boneless as a sleeping cat, and skinned herself right out of her shirt. Laughing, she grabbed up her crowbar while Freddy was still gaping at the empty shirt in his fist, and tore through the kitchen, dodging hands and swinging her crowbar indiscriminately. Although the hitting was good, nothing gave her that satisfying smash until she remembered the cameras.

She ran. Bonnie grabbed for her, Freddy grabbed at him, and she left the two of them behind and climbed up the shelves in the back room and smashed the camera there. That felt so good, she smashed it again. And again. And grabbed the crowbar with both hands, whaling away wildly even as she fell off the shelves. She landed mostly on a cushioning stack of sheetrock, although her left leg did hit her power washer instead. It did not hurt, God bless little blue pills, so she hopped up and smashed the fallen pieces of the camera some more, stopping only when she couldn’t find any big enough to smash.

“GO,” she heard Freddy say. “I’LL. CIRCLE. AROUND. DON’T. LET. HER. PAST. YOU.”

“Circle,” Ana murmured, swiping sweat from her face and licking it from her palm. “Circle circle circle.”

Thus summoned, Bonnie appeared in the kitchen doorway.

For a second, he was faceless again, startling her so that she scrambled to put the building crap between them. He looked at her, then at the doorless opening to the back hall in the corner next to the loading dock door, then at her again. “It’s okay, Ana,” he told her, easing into the room “Everything-ing-ing’s going to be okay. Just g-g-give me your hand—”

She laughed and sang, “ _Just give me your hand!_ ” in a high, mocking voice.

He didn’t break apart and blow away like she expected. He just nodded. His voice was soft and clear as he sang back at her, “ _You can be my baby girl tonight and I’ll be your man._ Come here, b-b-baby girl. Come here, Ana. It’s me. Look-k-k at me. It’s Bonnie.” 

No. Wait, was he? No, he couldn’t be. Bonnie was a poster on the wall behind a unicorn disguise. She’d never met him, didn’t know him. She’d never been to Freddy’s. Where was she? Where was she, really? None of this was real!

She dove for the hallway, only to stumble back again as she saw lights at the far end. She thought it was Freddy at first, then saw it was a boy, standing silent within a nightmarish bear-shaped shadow. Through the holes in the paper Freddy mask he wore, his eyes were black and full of wires.

David.

She backed up, seized the shelves and heaved them down between them, then threw herself against the loading dock door. It bit her when she pulled at it, but the pain wasn’t real. She shoved the door up and staggered out into the wind and rain and stink of another beautiful Mammon night. 

“Ana, no!” Bonnie snarled and lunged, catching at her hand, but the blood and rain made her slippery and she pulled free, hit the rusty rails and flipped backwards over them onto the hood of her truck. “Ana, d-d-don’t move!” he said as her legs slipped off one side of the wet hood and the rest of her followed, allowing her to drop more or less onto her feet even as the whole world spun. “Ana, p-p-p—PLEASE AND THANKS!—please! Stay-ay-ay with me!”

She grabbed up her crowbar and fled.


	32. Chapter 32

# CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Ana ran forever through the night with the wind always against her, herding her with slaps of rain, but somehow ended up back at Freddy’s, falling out of the storm and against the playground fence. Did the dream end there? Maybe, but the dream was a nightmare and nightmares begin again. When she raised her head and opened her eyes, she saw the blind staring eye of a camera, aimed not at the sandbox or the swings, but at the broken plastic feet that were all that remained of Tumble’s twin brother, Rumble.

It was hard to see. There was no blinking red light with this one; it had long ago succumbed to the young snipers of Mammon, but although the lens was a dry socket and its body was pocked with holes, its apparent death was a lie. It was a machine, after all. Machines never really die.

Unreasoning terror washed over her, its chill immediately followed by a hot rush of rage. She climbed the chain-link fence, up and over, landing badly and skinning her knees, but that didn’t hurt and didn’t matter. The camera was all that mattered, but it was mounted just under the overhanging roof, well out of her reach. How to get there?

Lightning flashed, outlining the scuttled hulk of the pirate ship climbing toy with silver light.

There was no plan, only movement and sensation. The knotted ropes were wet and frayed, slippery in her hands even as they cut into her. The deckboards were rotten; if they’d been dry, they would have broken under her weight, but swollen with rain as they were, they only sagged. The mast was already leaning, its rusty base pulling up the boards around it as a fallen tree’s roots pull up the earth. It needed only a push in the right direction and once it was in motion, it could not be pulled back and set right again.

Ana pushed. The crow’s nest where brave children had once stood watch over the invisible seas that filled the desert smashed apart when it fell. The mast bounced, cracking loudly on each impact, and lay crooked on the ground. It was too heavy to lift, so she was forced to pull it around in a clumsy semi-circle, tripping over playground toys and her own boots, leaving a trail of soggy splinters as the wood crumbled in her hands. Once leaned up against the building, the top of the mast easily touched the overhang, but it lost several inches when she put all her weight on the first rung.

The storm saw her and shouted her name. No, not the storm. Bonnie. How could he be here? The animatronics couldn’t leave the building. Even Freddy had never gone any further than the loading dock. But there he was, grabbing the chain-link fence and shaking it to get her attention. He told her to come down. He told her to listen to him. He told her—

Ana climbed. Decaying rungs broke off in her hands and the mast wobbled and dropped with each step. She knew she wasn’t going to make it, but she almost did. When she felt the mast lose its grip on the overhang, she jumped, sacrificing her crowbar to grab the eaves. 

To reach the roof had been her goal for so long that she’d forgotten why she needed to get there. She dangled, panting and spitting rain into the wind. Then she saw the camera and, reminded of her purpose, tried kicking at it. Once. Twice. Couldn’t reach.

Below her, unimportant, Bonnie ripped the chain-link off the fence posts like it was a paper towel on the roll and threw it to one side.

Ana hand-walked sideways, dimly aware of pain she could not quite feel, and kicked again. This time, she hit, knocking the camera loose, but not breaking it. She kicked again. And again. She kicked until she felt the crunching in her own bones. She kicked until the smell of roofing tar and blood was in her mouth. She kicked until her arms gave out and she fell.

_Oh what a lovely night_ , thought Ana, suspended in the air, seeing clouds like silver ribbons curled across a deep purple sky and raindrops shining like stars. She had never seen a moon so large or stars so bright. She could die right here and be happy. _Oh what a lovely night._

WHAM.

The sky went out. Black. Sound went out. Silent. Thought went out. Breath.

“Oh God-d-d, no,” said Bonnie. “Ana! A-A-A—ANEURYSM RISK TO THE FRONTAL LOBE—Ana!”

Slowly, slowly, the rain began to fall again, patting at her face with its ten thousand tiny hands. She turned her head, feeling/hearing sand crunch beneath her. She opened her eyes and saw, too close to really see, the mast lying beside her, its regularly spaced rungs broken off into a jagged row of wooden teeth.

Ana turned her head the other way and there was her crowbar. She reached out and got it. It felt good in her hand. She lay on the ground and looked at the sky and thought how good it would feel to swing it and hit something she could break. Something that could bleed. 

Then, Bonnie. He bent over her, blotting out the sky. His hands gripped her arms, pulling her off the ground and into his embrace in one jerky clockwork motion. It confused her. The crowbar was in her hands and his face was right in front of her, full of cracks. Had she done that? She remembered, or thought she could remember, sitting up all night and gluing the pieces together. She couldn’t remember smashing it, but she must have smashed something. She could remember the sound, the smell. The sky was purple and so was Bonnie. That had to mean something.

“Come on, b-b-baby girl,” he was saying. “Come ins-s-side.”

“I…fell.”

“I saw.” And he laughed—the high, half-crazed laugh that only came from real fear. “Come w-w-with me now.”

“Did you…Did you catch me?” she asked, because how else was he holding her? 

“Yeah. Y-Y-Yeah, I caught you. I’ll always c-c-catch you. Come on, baby. Walk w-w-with me.”

He took a step, his arm close around her still, holding her tight to him, so she had to take one too. The crowbar dangled, heavy but mostly forgotten, from her slack hand. She leaned into Bonnie, sharing his limp as they walked to the door. It was locked. Ana had a key, but before she could use it, Bonnie knocked. The sound of his fist banging on the metal door made a thunder, rolling on and on in Ana’s head even after she could see his arm drop.

“Let go of me,” she said.

He didn’t. “It’s all right-t-t, baby. Open your eyes. Be c-c-calm.”

“No, let go.” Footsteps. “He’s coming.”

“It’s j-j-just Chica.”

“It’s not, it’s…” Who? Someone. “Let go of me! Let go!”

He couldn’t hold on to her without hurting her. She knew it and fought, because Bonnie would never hurt her. He had to let go and he did, just as the playground door opened and there she was, shining gold in the darkness, eyes full of wires and body full of bones. It tried to fool her, tried to look like the real Chica, but its true shape wavered in the air like heat off a pan. Gold satiny skin, bloodstained and torn. Springtrap Chica. “IT SURE IS GREAT TO SEE YOU!” it said, all its many voices pressed together, not quite in sync.

Terror leapt to Ana’s throat and died there, crushed in an invisible fist. She couldn’t scream, so she tried to fight, swinging her crowbar in every direction but the one where the monster stood, managing to hit the door and the building and maybe Bonnie once, before he got the thing away from her and threw it into the abyss.

“Ana, baby, don’t! It’s ok-k-kay!”

Okay? She looked at Bonnie and saw, just for a second, his eyes full of wires and the place where his face should be turned once more into a gaping hole. 

“You’re one of them,” she whispered. “You’re one of them.”

“Ana—”

“They just reskinned you! You’re one of them! You ate his arm! It _was_ you! It was you the whole time!” 

“CAN I HELP?” Springtrap Chica chirped, blood bubbling out from her eyes and beak, but that was all Ana saw before she ran. “WE NEED HELP! WHERE’S FREDDY?”

“Forget Freddy, go get Foxy,” she could hear Bonnie shouting behind her. “G-G-Get Foxy! Ana! Ana, come b-b-back! It’s m-m-me!” 

She could barely keep her feet on the gravel. She scrambled and fell, scrambled and ran, taking ten thousand tarry steps to reach the chain-link fence and the asphalt beyond, with Bonnie right behind her, his heavy feet dragging over the playground, leaving footprints she could see stamped in her mind’s eye, full of blood. She could feel his fingers brush just once down her back, and then her shoes hit that pavement and she sprang away, leaving Bonnie to roar his frustration into the rain.

She hit the building and tumbled along it, sometimes on her feet and sometimes on her knees, until she reached the loading dock. She climbed up, scraping her hands and knees and chin, and threw herself through the open door. She hit the shelves, bounced off, fell onto lumber and crates and from there onto the floor, where she lay in darkness, waiting to die. 

Golden Freddy was coming. She could hear him already, lurching down the hall from the employee’s lounge. When the light of his eyes fell into the room, Ana seized the freeform shelves nearest her and heaved them over. Then she ran for the kitchen. The Puppet was waiting for her in the dining room, pouring purple blood from its eyes and into it grinning mouth, so Ana ran for the hall instead, past the dead girl dressed like a plastic pig propped up by the signpost, and up the dogleg to the security office. She wasted a few minutes beating on the manager’s door, then turned around and saw, through the front-facing security window, Foxy running up the hall.

And Foxy was fast.

Ana froze, but only for a second. Then she lunged and smacked the red button beside the door a split-second before Foxy banged up against it. She heard his fist slam down on the metal door three times and then silence. She waited, tensely watching the window, and soon enough, heard him move away from the door. 

He didn’t try to hide from her. He let her hear every heavy step, let her know exactly where he was, and then he was there, one arm up to grip the frame of the security window as he peered in at her. His hook tapped at the ledge as he thought. Then his gaze shifted past her to the open employee break room door.

She turned and there was Freddy again, but which one? She couldn’t tell. He was sometimes gold, sometimes brown. His eyes were lit, then empty. His arms were out, now broken, now bloody, now clawed. No way to get past him and nowhere to run. 

Ana backed up, glanced once at Foxy, still watching from the window, then spun and hit the door button again. She ran, knowing Foxy would be coming and he was, his metal feet cracking the tiles as he sprinted straight at her. Ana put on a last burst of speed, and threw herself on her stomach.

She slid right past him on the tiles and then she was up again and running for Pirate Cove. 

He threw himself into the opposite wall to avoid stepping on her, burying his hook in the wall to keep from going over, his momentum enough to gouge a jagged line longer than she stood tall behind him. He swiveled, lost his footing—metal feet, ceramic tiles—and she distinctly heard him bark, either in pain or surprise or maybe just the animal thrill of the chase, before he yanked his hook from the wall and tore after her again.

Ana hit the doors to Pirate Cove and heard Foxy hit them right behind her. She could see Tux’s smug, smiling face on the other side of the corridor across the room where he stood by her only hope of escape, but she knew she’d never make it. In desperation, Ana feinted toward the Treasure Cave (Foxy’s running feet changed course), then dove for the amphitheater (metal claws tearing at rotted carpet as he twisted mid-step to follow), flinging herself over the rails (sound of a hook stabbing into the surface of a table and a heavy plastic body sliding across) with nothing but the stage in sight and the door to the Parts Room she knew was hiding there, somewhere. Not until she was in the air, disconnected from the ground and at gravity’s mercy, did she remember the drop. How deep? Miles. A canyon in the black. A quarry, all open mouth and stony teeth.

Ana closed her eyes and fell.

Metal hit metal and scraped heavily. Foxy’s arm swung out of the dark and locked around her waist, yanking her out of the air. Her legs, arms and hair snapped out ahead of her as he swung her with him through space; for a moment out of time, she imagined the rigging of a ship, the Flying Fox, and him and her swinging out over the sea on a rope, but the moment shattered and it was just Foxy, hanging from his hook off the rails, with her slung over his arm. 

He looked down—his eyes lit, illuminating the benches ten or ten thousand feet below—and he gauged the distorted distance with a judicious grunt through his speakers. “If I lower-r-r ye down—” he began.

Ana at once began to struggle, slapping at his arm and kicking at the air.

“Aye, that’s what-t-t I thought. Hold st-st-still, ye bloody nuisance.” He bucked his legs—alley-oop!—pitching them both up and over and back on the ground. 

He let go of her. She tried to run. Before she even knew he’d caught her, her back hit a table. Foxy dropped on top of her, his hand splayed on her chest, shoving her flat before she could more than twitch upwards in a last hopeless effort to escape. 

“Catch me,” she whispered, her eyes shut tight against the death she knew was coming. “Did you catch me?”

“Oh aye,” he growled, close against her skin. “A m-m-merry chase it was, but yer c-c-caught.”

“I’m still…falling. Why am I…still falling?” Her hands fluttered up, touching plastic, finding his scars and digging in like they were handholds. “Catch me. Keep me. Kill me if you have to, but keep me on the ground.”

“I have ye-e-e,” Foxy said, no longer growling. He shifted, pinning her beneath his tremendous weight and freeing his hand to reach up and cup her cheek. “Open yer eyes, lass.”

“Catch me.”

“I’m r-r-right here.”

“I’m falling!”

“Ana!” he barked.

Her eyes dashed open and his were there—yellow and white—glowing bright behind the glint of his teeth. His metal fingers gripped her face, turning her this and that way.

“What’s wrong with yer eyes?” he asked, growling once again.

The doors to the East Hall banged open and it was a Springtrap suit for a split-second before it was Bonnie.

“Oh th-th-thank God, you caught her…What the hell are you d-d-doing?”

Foxy reared up, his body distorted, a hundred feet tall and full of fire. “Holding her down. Get-t-t over here and help. She wr-wr-wriggles like a worm.”

“He’ll hook me like one,” Ana tried to say, but somewhere between her brain and her mouth, the words got all tangled. They came out as a moan, broken by her flagging struggles. She clutched at the edge of the table, bucking and kicking, trying without much success to pull herself out from under him, and all of this she could do, but she had lost the power of speech.

The yellow light of Foxy’s eye turned on her briefly, then went back to Bonnie. “Is sh-she high?”

“Does that-t-t fucking matter right now? Ana. Baby, look at m-me.” Bonnie cupped her cheek and made her obey him. His thumbs—one padded, one bare metal—pried at her eyelids. “Jeez, look-k-k at that. She looks like one of us, like’s she’s g-g-gone black.”

Ana moaned again, pushing ineffectively at Bonnie’s hand and then at Foxy’s chest.

“She has,” Foxy said. “And sh-she’s gone deep.” A short silence, followed by Foxy’s gruff mechanical sigh. “Right, I’m t-t-taking her to me cabin.”

“Like h—HELLO THERE!—hell you are!”

“Oh, I am not-t-t having this conversation with ye, ye brick-headed-d-d-d jealous ass. Look at her! I can’t chase after her-r-r—YARR!—all night, she’s got to be contained-d-d! Where else in this damned place can ye put-t-t her that ain’t got the walls p-p-pulled down? I ain’t-t-t putting her in the shitter and she’ll actually freeze in the b-b-bloody freezer now, and that leaves me c-c-cabin.”

“No, that-t-t leaves _me_ taking-ing-ing her to the party room and you staying here!”

“She g-g-got away from ye once already-dy-dy, bucko. Tell me—TALES OF THE SEA!—she couldn’t d-d-do it again.”

Bonnie’s hands on her arms tightened to the point of pain, but when she moaned, he released her entirely and stepped back. 

“Aye,” said Foxy, not quite sneering but not far from it. “Just so. And that’s why she c-c-coming to me cabin.”

“Then I’m g-g-going with her.”

“Don’t be daft. Th-Th—THAR SHE BLOWS!—There ain’t r-r-room for three. Hardly r-r-room for two and that’s when one of th-them’s a k-k-kid.”

“Then you’re s-s-st-staying-ing outside.”

“It’s me own b-b-bloody cabin! Why am I arguing with ye? Ye c-c-can’t even fit through the d-d-door!”

Purple briefly sliced across her vision as Bonnie slammed his hands down on either side of her and went muzzle to muzzle with Foxy, but Foxy’s face got no brighter. Bonnie’s pupils were fully dilated, their light reduced to pinpoints that illuminated nothing. “You’re not-t-t taking her away and c-c-closing-ing a g-g-g-goddamn d-d-d—DORSOSPINAL TRACT MUST BE INTACT—door on me!”

Foxy’s hook flashed bright as lightning in the dark as he jabbed it in under Bonnie’s jaw and yanked him even closer, so that their noses almost touched. “Ye need-d-d to open yer eyes,” he said, very quietly. “B-B-Because one of ye in the b-b-b—BLACKMANE, ME MORTAL ENEMY—black is all I c-c-can handle, and I m-m-may not know what to d-d-do with her, but I know just how to d-d-deal with ye.”

Bonnie did nothing for a long, long time as Ana lay beneath them both. Then Foxy unhooked him and Bonnie backed away from the table. 

“If ye won’t-t-t have her in me cabin, I need to m-m-make another place.” He looked back at the stage, his ears back as he thought. “All right-t-t. I need a minute. Hold-d-d on to her.”

His weight left her. Bonnie’s hand lit briefly on her shoulder, then smoothed her hair back. Ana closed her eyes against his changing face and floated in the formless dark until a light snapped on behind her. 

She sat bolt upright, flinging up her arm as a shield against the brightness of the beam as she looked for its source and there, beneath the crow’s nest, was a camera. It moved slowly right to left, scanning the room.

“Oh sh-sh-shit,” said Bonnie and then yelled, “Foxy!”

“What, for G-G-God’s sake?” snarled Foxy. The sound of his fist smacking a solid surface preceded a mechanical buzz as old motors were forced to life after a long hiatus and the curtains of Pirate’s Cove jerked open. Foxy stood at the ship’s wheel, frozen, staring into the light. “Oh shit,” he said. 

The camera came to Ana and stopped.

It and Ana stared at each other.

Then Ana pitched herself off the table, through ten miles of nothing to her knees on the floor and was off at a run, seizing a chair as she passed it and throwing it. It spun through the air, end over end, beautiful, and hit in a wondrous starburst of smoke, chair-legs and plastic shards. The dark dropped over her again and in the dark, Ana ran.

“Bonnie!” Foxy shouted. “What are ye st-st-standing there for? G-G-Grab her!”

“Ana, wait!”

She looked back to see Foxy leap from the stage to the auditorium floor, then grabbed another chair and threw that. Her aim was good; his reflexes were better. He smacked it explosively aside with one swing of his fist and sprang.

Tigers, Ana had learned at some point in her life, could jump thirty feet. That fact unspooled through her mind with syrupy calm in the split-second between Foxy leaving the ground halfway up the auditorium stairs and him crashing into her. He wasn’t a tiger, he wasn’t even a real fox, but by God, he made that jump and it was thirty feet if it was a fucking inch.

She banged up against the wall with his hard body hammering against her and his arms smashing into the wall on either side of her in an effort to hold his weight off her. She recovered first, attempting to drop and wriggle out beneath him, but he hooked her by the belt and flung her into the wall again. Immediately afterwards, he was himself seized and thrown halfway to the mouth of the Treasure Cave by an enraged, sometimes-blue, sometimes-purple Bonnie.

“G-G-Get your f-f-fucking-ing hands-s-s off her-r-r!” Bonnie shouted. “D-Don’t you hurt her!” 

Foxy hit the ground, stabbing his hook into the floor to stop himself from skidding clear across the room on his back. The lower half of his body pivoted so that the claws of his metal feet could grip the carpet. When he had it, he unhooked himself and just seemed to fall upwards, his upper body swiveling into alignment with the rest of him. For Ana, watching, this was the worst moment. Foxy had always had the most human-like range of motion, which was unsettling enough at times, but to see him moving in ways only a machine could move terrified her. She took a few questing steps toward the West Hall while Foxy snapped his lower jaw back in place, then ran.

“Oi, grab her!”

“Ana!”

“I said ‘grab’ not ‘holler at’, ye b-b-bleeding ijit!” Foxy snarled and shoved Bonnie aside as he sprinted after her.

She heard his running feet—one, two, three—and then ominous silence. She threw herself from one side of the corridor to the other in a desperate attempt to dodge, but his arm snapped around her waist and they went down together, sliding over tiles and almost all the way out into the West Hall, so close to freedom that she could see the light of Foxy’s mismatched eyes shining on the pedicured claws of Tux’s feet. Pinning her flat, he got to his feet first, then threw her over his shoulder and carried her like swag back to Pirate Cove.

Tux receded. The smell of hot wires and singed plastic burnt her nostrils. _Wham_ and she was on the table once more.

“I d-d-don’t know which of ye I want to hit more! Get ov-v-ver—OVERBOARD!—here!” Foxy snarled, his hand like a pin through a butterfly at the small of her back. “Hold her d-d-down!” The curve of his hook pressed down on the back of her neck. He did not remove them until Bonnie’s hands replaced them. “Put yer weight-t-t into it, damn ye!”

“I’m h-h-hurting her,” Bonnie said as Ana sobbed and struggled.

“Then hurt her, but hold-d-d her down! One more g-g-good sprint and she’s out-t-t that bleedin’ door! Where d-d-do ye think she’ll go next, eh? The r-r-r—REEF OF THE RED SIRENS—road or the quarry? We’ll n-n-never know, because it’s the last-t-t we’ll ever see of her, so hold her-r-r _down!_ ” 

Foxy’s swift footsteps receded and Freddy’s came scraping over. She hadn’t heard him come in, but she knew his stride, just as she knew the rough feel of the finger that stroked her hair back from her cheek, and at once, her struggles waned. They didn’t stop completely—she couldn’t stop, no more than she could stop her heart beating just by willing it—but they slowed and her sobs quieted to breathy panting. Freddy had her and Freddy loved her. At the moment, she didn’t even care if he was gold or not, as long as he loved her.

“What the f-f-f—FUN TIMES AT FREDDY’S—fuck is she on?” Bonnie asked in what was, for him, a scarily serious voice.

“I DON’T KNOW.” 

“And why, for God’s sake? Why would-d-d she get—HI THERE!—high, when those g-g-guys could come b-b-back any t-t-t—TIME TO ROCK! She said-d-d she had to keep her head-d-d on tonight.” There was an odd intensity in Bonnie’s voice, almost a pleading quality. His hands shifted again, wanting to lift her, forced to push her into the table. “She said that!”

“I DON’T KNOW, BONNIE.” A pause, interrupted by faint clicks and whirring as Freddy patted her head under his huge, heavy hand. “I. DON’T. THINK. SHE. KNOWS.” Another pause. His hand was gentle, so cold and abrasive and so gentle. “WOULDN’T. IT. BE. NICE. IF. THERE. WERE. ALWAYS. REASONS.”

The clank of Foxy’s feet returned and with them, his hand and hook, deftly prying her loose from Bonnie and flipping her onto his shoulder again. He headed down the steep steps of the amphitheater, jostling her hard on each descent.

“Where are you t-t-taking her?” Bonnie’s distinctive limp moved away, then came back along the access ramp at the other end of the room. “I t-t-told you, you’re n-n-not taking-ing her to your c-c-cabin!”

“I heard ye the first-t-t time!” Foxy snapped, climbing onto the stage and hupping her more securely over his shoulder. He walked up the echoing gangplank, onto the deck of his ship, and then he pitched her off. She dropped forever and landed in an ocean of plastic balls. She sank to the bottom and lay dazed, smelling plastic and mildew, then slowly rolled over onto her hands and knees. The floor felt padded and clammy; not the real floor, but the stage maybe. She crawled through the blackness, groping ahead of her until her fingers found a wall of sorts, but one made of mesh. She followed it, hunting for a door, but found none and her knees were beginning to hurt, padded floor or no. Hooking her fingers through the mesh, she managed to stand in the deep drifts of balls.

She could see eyes—Freddy’s, high above her and far away; Bonnie’s, closer and down below; and suddenly Foxy’s as he dropped out of the sky and landed right beside her, but on the other side of the mesh. His eyes were bright enough that she could see the colors of the balls engulfing her—all different shades of blue—and the hints of paint remaining on the netting that were meant to resemble ocean waves and the protruding fins of sharks. Ana looked up and saw the hull of the Flying Fox stretching up into infinite darkness, with the broad, black bar of a plank hanging over her head, well out of reach.

She was in the ball pit, she realized. The one you fell in when Foxy made you walk the plank. She reached, but couldn’t find the top of the pit. The mesh was too elastic to climb, not elastic enough to let her get more than a fingertip through its weave. She wasted a few eternities trying to break the cording, but succeeded only in raising red welts in the creases of her knuckles. 

“Is that s-s-seriously going to hold her?” Bonnie asked.

“It should-d-d.” Foxy’s eye never left her, tracking her without blinking as she paced her flimsy cage. “The t-t-trapdoor—”

Ana dropped to her knees at once, sweeping balls aside as she searched the padded floor, and discovering with a start that she was right on top of it. Her weight had pushed it down maybe half an inch, but no more. No amount of pushing or bouncing could dislodge it any further.

“—is blocked from b-b-below,” Foxy finished evenly. “She’s in for the n-n-night. Get on with ye. I’ll let her-r-r—ARR!—out in the morning.”

“ALL. RIGHT,” said Freddy. “BONNIE. LET’S GO.”

“I’m not-t-t leaving her.”

“She won’t lie quiet-t-t until ye do, so if ye love her, for G-G—GREAT NEPTUNE’S GHOST!—God’s sake, get on with ye!”

“BONNIE.”

“No!”

Ana climbed back to her feet, weaving, then turned and felt at the side of the Flying Fox. It was too tall and too well-built to let her climb it, but she tried anyway, pacing back and forth along the hull and scratching futilely at the boards, until her foot came down on something unexpected and she fell into the balls. Confused, she felt around for whatever had tripped her up and sank her fingers into stiff fabric wrapping a bundle of sticks.

Ana stood, pulling the thing with her up into the light of animatronic eyes.

“Eh…”

“What th-th-the…?”

“OH. HELLO.”

She had a prop from the Treasure Cave, a skeleton with just enough skin to hold its bones together. It wasn’t dressed like a pirate, unless pirates wore Juggalo tee-shirts these days, but no cursed cave was complete without some poor jack-off who’d tempted fate and lost. It didn’t even seem all that odd that it was over here in the ball pit. That was just the sort of thing punk-ass vandals did—pry off the prop skeleton and toss it around. Maybe they’d been the ones to dress it like this, too. Jeans and tee, shoes and socks…underwear…wristwatch…

“Is th-th-that a fucking body?” Bonnie demanded. “You put-t-t her in there with-th a fucking-ing body?”

“Hell, I didn’t-t-t know it were there!”

“How c-c-could you not-t-t know?”

“I d-d-don’t…I…People bleed! Th-They crawl off bleeding and they d-d-die! What d-d-do ye want from—OLD CAPTAIN—me?”

“I w-w-want a fucking-ing corpse-free environment-t-t when she’s coming-ing down off a f-f-fucking hi—HYPOTHALAMIC PROCESSES—high, you skinless god-d-damn fuckwit! What’s w-w-wr- _wrong_ with you?”

“Look m-m-me in me eye and t-t-tell me there ain’t-t-t another bleeding-b-body anywhere else in this d-d-damned place!” A short silence. “Aye, that’s wh-wh-what I thought! So shut it! This ain’t-t-t me fault! I wanted-d-d her in me damn cabin!”

“Yeah, and if you’d-d-d put her th-there, there’d still be a goddamn c-c-corpse in your g-g-goddamn ball pit for her to f-f-find when she gets ar-r-r— _AROUND THE MOUNTAIN_ —around to c-c-cleaning it! Is that b-b- _better?_ ”

“BONNIE. THAT’S ENOUGH. FOXY—”

“Aye, I’m g-g-going.” Swearing at the lowest register of his speakers, Foxy hopped back onto the stage and, eschewing the gangplank, hooked the rails of the deck and swung himself aboard the Flying Fox. 

Ana dropped the prop skeleton and dove back into the balls as his feet swiftly crossed the deck. Sinking below the waves, she gathered her legs under her and waited, watching intently as he leaned over the rails.

His eyes lit up, scanned the ball pit, and turned out into the auditorium. “Where-re-re is she?”

“She w-w-went down over th-there.”

Foxy made a sound somewhere between a growl and a grunt, turning his eyes back on for another look. The balls provided the perfect camouflage, their many hues and deep shadows breaking up her form, dense enough to cover her completely but loosely-packed enough to let her breathe. He looked for her—the light of his eyes passed right over her twice—but couldn’t find her. 

“Say s-s-something to her,” Foxy ordered. “Call her out-t-t.”

“Ana.” Bonnie moved closer to the stage. “Baby girl, c-c-come here.”

Ana wasn’t fooled, didn’t move. She watched nothing but Foxy as he swung himself over the rails and climbed down the hull with the unfair use of his hook. He waded through the balls to the prop skeleton, stopping often just to look around, but Ana could be quiet and so, so still.

“Oh, I j-j-just know she’s g-g-going to leap out at me,” he muttered, picking up the prop and wading with it over to the mesh wall. He tossed it over the top like an oversized, awkward javelin, saying, “D-D-Do something with this.”

Bonnie caught the prop. Most of it, anyway. The head popped off and one arm fell out of the sleeve of its shirt, but the clothes kept the rest of it together. Bonnie stooped stiffly to gather the pieces and threw them, one at a time, up the stairs to Freddy, then came right back to the foot of the stage. “Ana,” he said softly, urgently. “Where are y-y-you, baby?”

She almost answered. She wanted to, even though she knew it wasn’t really him. But she must have moved, even if she didn’t speak, because Foxy turned around. His gaze moved restlessly over the balls, his body in constant shuddering motion, transforming with each twitch into incarnations he had known—he was Flagship Foxy, Circle Drive Foxy, Toy Foxy. Sometimes broken, sometimes whole, sometimes with fur and sometimes with a tail, but always with teeth and that one glowing eye that searched for her.

Ana did not move. She was ten years old and tiny, thin arms braced against the ground and skinny legs tensed for the jump. She waited, hardly breathing, making no sound, and at last, Foxy moved.

He went to the side of the ship, dug his hook in high overhead, peered at the balls one more time, then heaved himself up and reached for the deck.

Ana leapt, exploding from the sea in a spray of water and blood. She broke on him like a wave, crashing up against his back and climbing him like a ladder. Somewhere, Freddy bellowed and David called her name, but Ana was already scrambling up and over, finding footholds on Foxy’s thigh and shoulder, snatching at the rails of the Flying Fox and heaving herself up—

His metal hand slapped against her back, groping at her bare skin all the way down to her jeans and catching her by the belt. He yanked; she stayed where she was, but the ship was pulled violently back and Foxy slammed up from beneath her. With his hook still fixed in the hull and his feet wedged between the boards, he grappled with her one-handed and still broke every grip she got on him, finally shoving her with a bang up against the hull of the ship. Once. Twice. 

Caught.

They looked at each other, neither one moving, his cooling system and her breath not quite in sync. The waves tossed below her, smoky-dark and full of sharks. The stars sewn onto the curtains moved, spinning further out into space, illuminating nothing. All the world was a stage and the show was over.

“You always let me drown,” she whispered and let go, slipping from his grip into the sea.

The water closed over her, black and cold, but she could still see him in slivers, staring after her.

David was still calling her, his voice deepening and taking on metallic timbre, until it was Bonnie’s. Blue or purple? She couldn’t tell anymore. If she turned her head, she might be able to see him at the foot of the stage, at the edge of the sea, but she didn’t. She watched Foxy search the waves where she’d gone down and she watched him turn away, reaching up to catch the deck with his good hand and then just hang there.

Twenty years passed.

“D-D-Damn it,” he growled. 

Freddy moved somewhere in the auditorium. “FOXY. LEAVE. HER.”

“Damned if I will!” spat Foxy and began to climb down.

“No,” said Bonnie, frantically limping back and forth on the shore. “No, no no no! F-F-FESTINATING MOVEMENTS OBSERVED—Freddy, g-g-get him out-t-t-t of th-th-th—THALISTIGIAL NUCLEUS OF THE CEREBELLUM. L-L-L-Leave her-r-r alone! Ana! An-n-n—ANOMIA CAN RESULT IF THE CORE SPEECH PROGRAMS ARE STRESSED OR DAMAGED.”

Foxy yanked his hook from the side of the ship with a fall of splinters and waded out into the sea, pushing plastic balls and waves of blood ahead of him with sweeps of his arm until he found her. When he bent over her, blood poured out through the holes in his chest, bubbling up from his joints and leaking like tears from his plastic eyes.

Ana could not scream, had never learned how, but she managed a rusty, unhappy wail, putting up both hands in a futile, shaking effort to push him back.

He never touched her. He straightened up, stepped back, and just watched as she rolled onto her arms and legs and crawled over to the mesh wall to collapse, shivering, and curl herself into a ball.

“G-G-Get him out of there,” Bonnie said, trying to pet her through the barrier. “P-P-Please, Freddy.” 

“COME ON, BONNIE, LET’S GO,” Freddy called heartily and darkly added, “SHE. NEEDS. TO. SLEEP.”

“And the fewer distractions, the sooner-r-r that’ll happen.”

“I’m not a d-d-d—DISTAL PORTION OF THE CEPHALIC PROCESS—distraction and I’m n-n-not leaving her alone with-th-th you!”

“FOXY. WILL. WATCH. HER.”

“Fuck-k-k Foxy!”

“Aye, well, ye ain’t me type, but g-g-get a bottle of rum— _AND THE ROLLING_ —in me and anything c-c-could happen.” Balls shifted behind her as he came nearer. Waves lapped at her scars. “Go on now. Ye can’t-t-t help and ye don’t need-d-d to be seeing her like this. Get-t-t off with ye.”

“G-G-Get off by your-r-self for a change, you—”

“BONNIE. I. SAID. GO.” Freddy pointed at the West Hall corridor. “NOW.”

Silence. Ana raised her head to watch Bonnie and Freddy stare each other down from across the room. It was a long stare, but it wasn’t really a challenge. Freddy was the leader. Ears drooping, Bonnie turned and limped away. 

_Don’t leave me,_ Ana mouthed, but she had no voice. She slapped at the mesh, but he didn’t look back. He left her and he never looked back.

“Ana.”

Ana turned her head first, then her eyes. Otherwise, she did not move. Her fingers scratched once at the mesh wall that kept her in the bloody sea, but that was all. 

Foxy extended his hook, looked at it, then dropped that arm and reached out the other. “Come here,” he said, sharp teeth shining. Behind him, the waves surged and crashed against the hull of the ship. The sails of the Flying Fox were tattered, translucent. A ghost ship, crewed by the half-there figures of the dead, adults and children both, some dressed in their Fazbear t-shirts and others in pirate costumes, all still wearing the wounds that had killed them.

“Come here to m-m-me, lass,” Foxy snarled, pouring blood from his mouth and eyes. 

He knew the attack was coming. He must have, because in the last instant before she lunged, his eyepatch snapped down. He caught her mid-leap, his metal hand locking around her wrist like shackles. She was spun and the world kept spinning long after she herself had stopped, crushed up against his chest with his arm around her waist, anchoring her to him. He had only to lean back so that her feet could no longer reach the ground and wait out her kicking, flailing, pointless struggles.

Freddy watched, just watched, the body of the prop skeleton over his shoulder and the head and arm in his hands. 

“She’s all r-r-right,” Foxy grumbled, forcing her trapped wrist down and across her midriff. “Aren’t ye, lass? R-R-Right as rain and s-s-safe as houses. C-C-Calm yerself, Ana. Open yer eyes and b-b-be calm. I know where ye ar—ARR! And if I c-c-can come back, so can ye. Listen to me v-v-voice, luv. Follow me home.”

She knew he was there. She could hear the humming of his internal parts through his cracked casing, feel the steady puff of his cooling system like hot breath on the back of her neck, smell the fetid moldering smell of him—all this, but she couldn’t see him, and so, slowly, he ceased to be. Too exhausted to struggle, she sagged, penned up by his forgotten, unimportant arms, and stared into the auditorium as it filled up with ghosts. 

“Ah, ye wee fool. Ye’re going to be every c-c-color of pain’s rainbow tomorrow.” Foxy shifted to hook her braid, pulling it out from between them so he could run the cold curve of his hook along her back in a high, arched line from shoulder to shoulder. “Everything is all right, eh?” His hook dropped, now tracing the curve of her spine. She could feel the dip and bump of every raised scar as he traveled lower, until the press of their two bodies made further progress impossible. Then he pulled her tighter against his hot, inflexible chest and lifted her chin on the curve of his hook so he could see the tattoos on her chest, all silent gears and open wounds. “Ye seen th-these?”

“YES.”

Foxy studied her chest for a while, the beams of his eyes never going lower than the ink in her skin. “She’s really hurt-t-t, ain’t she?” he asked suddenly.

“YES.”

“Did we d-d-do it?”

“I DON’T KNOW.” Freddy’s eyes flickered and his ears lowered. “BUT. I. THINK. SO.”

Foxy growled low against her ear, petting her with the curved side of his hook when she squirmed. “Look b-b-behind ye, mate.”

Freddy’s head turned. The blurry spotlight of his eyes moved over the wall until it reached the broken camera. “YES. SHE. BROKE. A. LOT. OF. THEM.”

“Were th-they all on?” Foxy asked. “Because this one w-w-were. It were pointed right at her, light-t-t on and everything. No way that were happenchance. He were behind that eye, Fred-d-d. _He_ saw her.”

Freddy grunted, looking off in the direction of the crow’s nest.

“And aye, I know, it were b-b-bound to happen once she got the power back, but here it is, mate, and what do we d-d-do about it? We can’t stop him from p-p-peeping on her.”

“AN-N-A. CAN.”

“Can ye let her t-t-take ‘em down?”

“NO. BUT. SHE. WILL.” Freddy looked at Ana, his eyes lit and flickering; she looked back at him, shivering as he fluxed from brown and broken to gold and bloody. “SHE. THINKS. THEY’RE. T-T-TRANSMITTING.”

Foxy’s fan revved against Ana’s back. “Are they?”

“I DON’T KNOW. BUT. SHE. THINKS. THEY. ARE. SO. SHE’LL. TAKE. CARE. OF. IT.” Freddy took his hat off and rubbed his brows. “I. TOLD. HER. NOT. TO. AND. SHE. SAID. SHE. WOULDN’T. SO. SHE. OUGHT. TO. HAVE. THEM. ALL. GONE. IN. A. FEW. DAYS.”

“That’ll b-b-blind him again, but he still knows she’s here.”

“I’M. SURE. HE’S. KNOWN. FOR. SOME. TIME. NOW.” 

“But she still d-d-don’t know about him.” Foxy sighed, hot breath on her neck and puffing out through all his joints. “Ain’t there anything ye c-c-can say? Any kind o’ clue?”

“MAYBE.” Freddy’s arms heaved up and out in a helpless, empty-handed gesture. “THAT’S. THE. PROBLEM. ISN’T. IT. I. COULD. PROBABLY. DROP. ALL. SORTS. OF. CLUES. BUT. I. COULD. NEVER. TELL. HER. ENOUGH. TO. MAKE. HER. UNDERSTAND. WHAT. HE. IS. OR. WHAT. HE’S. DONE. I. COULD. ONLY. GIVE. HER. A. PUZZLE. TO. SOLVE.” Freddy’s gaze fell to the floor and the light of his eyes dimmed as the lenses within opened wide. “SHE’S. TOO. GOOD. AT. SOLVING. PUZZLES.”

“Aye, I reckon yer right.”

“BESIDES. I. JUST. TOLD. HER. THERE. WAS. NO. PLACE. MEANT. NOW. IF. I. TELL. HER. THERE. IS. SHE’LL. NEVER. TRUST. ME. AGAIN. SHE. CERTAINLY. WON’T. KEEP. OUT. JUST. BECAUSE. I. TELL. HER. IT’S. DANGEROUS.” Freddy shook his head, grumbling, then said, “AT. THAT. POINT. THE. ONLY. WAY. TO. KEEP. HER. OUT. WOULD. BE. TO. ORDER. HER. TO. GO. IN.” 

Silence. Ana drifted, slowly forgetting he was there, so that she jerked up, kicking and slapping again, when Foxy said, “Well, he c-c-can’t get out. Hush now, lass. Hush. Be c-c-calm. He c-c-can look all he wants, ‘till she takes his eyes out. She’s s-s-safe enough, ain’t she?”

Freddy grunted, watching Ana writhe in Foxy’s restraining embrace. 

“Yer taking yer sweet t-t-t—TIME TO SET SAIL, MATEYS—time agreeing, mate.”

“SORRY. I. WAS. JUST. THINKING.”

“Of?”

“ALL. THE. TIMES. I. TRIED. TO. SAVE. THEM.” The light of Freddy’s eyes dimmed, slow to brighten again. “I. NEVER. COULD. NOT. ONCE.”

“Coo, Fred, j-j-just once, I’d love it if ye lied to me.”

“I. HAVE,” Freddy replied distractedly, now looking back at the broken camera, or rather, the place it used to occupy on the wall. “MORE. THAN. ONCE.”

“Eh?”

Freddy did not elaborate. After a minute’s clicking thought, he glanced down at the prop pirate skeleton he carried, then snapped it in half at the waist and proceeded to fold it up like a jumpsuit, knees to chest and arms tucked in. The skull, he carried like a bowling ball, two fingers in its eye sockets and thumb in its open mouth. “WILL. YOU. BE. ALL. RIGHT. WITH. HER,” Freddy asked, already heading for the door.

“Aye. Just-t-t keep Bon out o’ here and she’ll b-b-be fine. Hell of a night-t-t, eh?” he called, his voice tilting up with weary good humor.

Freddy did not laugh. “IT’S. ONLY. JUST. STARTED.”


	33. Chapter 33

# CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Bonnie was a jealous dick. So he told himself, over and over, as he paced in the dining room under Freddy’s unflinching stare. Furthermore, he understood that this was absolutely the wrong time for it, assuming there was ever a right time to be a jealous dick, but the fact remained, Ana was in Pirate Cove with Foxy. So he was a jealous dick, sure he was, but for once, he had a perfect right to be. 

“BONNIE. I. HAVE. TO. KEEP. WATCH. TONIGHT,” Freddy said finally. “DO. I. HAVE. TO. PUT. YOU. IN. THE. KITCHEN. BEFORE. I. GO. OR. ARE. YOU. GOING. TO. GROW. UP. AND. CALM. DOWN.”

Bonnie rounded on him at once, ears flat and rattling against his head. “You think-k-k I’m the unreasonable one here? Me? GREAT JOB! I mean, fuck-k-k you! If you’d ever c-c-cared about anyone in your life, you’d kn-kn-kn—NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS—know you that-t-t you’d never, _never_ give that p-p-person to fucking-ing-ing Foxy when she’s vulnerable!”

“KITCHEN. IT. IS,” said Freddy with a curt sigh. He crooked a finger, walking away. “LET’S GO.”

“Fucking make me, you…you…” What would Ana say? “…you p-p-petty-minded fascist-t-t!”

Chica, watching from the stage, winced and looked at Freddy, who stood silent in the kitchen doorway for almost five full seconds before he turned around.

“Yeah, I said-d-d it!” said Bonnie, already sort of regretting it. 

“I. HEARD. YOU,” Freddy said mildly. “LET. ME. ASK. YOU. SOME. THING. BONNIE. BECAUSE. I. HONESTY. DO. NOT. UNDERSTAND. WHAT. DO. YOU. THINK. FOXY. IS. DOING. TO. HER. RIGHT. NOW.”

‘He’s being there,’ Bonnie thought, shivering in his joints. ‘He’s being there for her and I’m not. She’s going to spend the whole damn night there, and whether she remembers that part of it or not, when she wakes up tomorrow, she’ll wake up _in his arms_ and know that it was Foxy looking out for her on the worst night of her life while I was somewhere else.’ 

But this was bad enough when it was just writhing around in his head. He couldn’t bring himself to bring it stinking out in the open.

Freddy was not known for sympathy, but he had moments of almost telepathic empathy and this was one of them. His ears shifted as he listened to the silence and at last, he nodded. “I. KNOW. THIS. IS. HARD. FOR. YOU. AND. BELIEVE. IT. OR. NOT. I. DO. CARE. BUT. THIS. ISN’T. ABOUT. YOU. OR. ME. TONIGHT. IT’S. ABOUT. AN-N-A. AND. WHAT. SHE. NEEDS.”

“She needs me,” Bonnie said. “She doesn’t need Foxy, she needs _me!_ ”

“NO. SHE. NEEDS. SLEEP. BONNIE. SHE. NEEDS. SOME. ONE. WHO. CAN. TAKE. CARE. OF. HER. AND. KEEP. HER. QUIET. AND. MOST. OF. ALL. SHE. NEEDS. SOME. ONE. WHO. CAN. RUN. FASTER. THAN. SHE. CAN. IF. NECESSARY.” Freddy paused, looking around with his ears sweeping left to right. “WHAT IS THAT?”

“I’d let her sleep!” he insisted. “I can take care of her! I c-c-can keep her quiet!”

“YOU. CAN’T. EVEN. KEEP. YOURSELF. QUIET,” Freddy said, then scowled and looked around again. “DO. YOU. HEAR. THAT.”

“What?” Bonnie asked sullenly, but swept his ears around, scanning for sound. Just as he was about to ask what the hell he was listening for, he heard a buzz. Short, low-pitched. Mechanical, not an insect, and after a moment’s confusion, he knew what it was. “That’s Ana’s phone.”

“NO. IT. ISN’T.”

“Yeah, it is,” snapped Bonnie. “It’s just not ringing. It’s doing the other thing, where people type words at her.”

“ON. A. PHONE.”

“Yeah, on a phone! There’s letters on the buttons, aren’t there? You push them in a certain way and they come up on the screen as words instead of numbers. It’s called ‘tech-ing.’ It was just starting to catch on back in Circle Drive, don’t you remember?”

“WHY. WOULDN’T. THEY. JUST. CALL. AND. TALK.”

“Because they c-c-can tech!” Bonnie exclaimed, flinging out his arms. “Jesus C-C—CRISPY CRUST—Freddy, if this was a hundred-d-d years ago, you’d be asking why people c-c-called instead of sending-ing-ing pigeons everywhere!”

Chica snorted, but pretended it had had been a sneeze when Freddy glanced her way by quickly wiping at her beak and saying, “GESHUNDHEIT.”

“Look,” said Bonnie, taking a step forward to bring Freddy’s attention back to the important thing. “Look, just-t-t…just let me be there when she wakes up. Let her sleep-p-p with him, I don’t care.” God, did he care. “But let-t-t me be there in the morning-ing-ing.”

Freddy thought about that and while he thought, the phone buzzed again, distracting him.

“Fine, I’ll show you,” said Bonnie, limping over to the table where Ana had left her duffel bag. The phone’s screen was lit up, easy to find. It was the first time he’d actually gotten a good look at it and it threw him to see it didn’t have buttons. Like her tablet, it was a touchscreen model. “Great,” he muttered, picking it up anyway. “Okay, well, I d-d-don’t know how this works, but I know I’m right.”

The phone buzzed in his hand—that was a weird feeling—and a few words lit up, informing him there was an incoming message from Rider. One of several. And even as he was reading this, the phone buzzed again. And again.

“WHAT IS IT?” Freddy asked, coming toward him.

“I don’t know,” said Bonnie. “I g-g-guess he’s just got a lot to say. It’s that Rider-guy.”

“HER. FRIEND.”

“Sort of. He’s the guy she worked for back in C-C-California. He got her the tattoo on her arm.” Seeing Freddy’s puzzled stare, Bonnie rolled his eyes and said, “The guy she gets her d-d-drugs from.”

Freddy’s scowl dropped like a hammer. “WHAT. DOES. HE. WANT.”

“How the hell should I know?” Bonnie showed Freddy the phone’s screen just in time for it to buzz again. “It doesn’t tell me. Ana has to—What are you doing?” he interrupted himself, yanking the phone back in alarm as Freddy reached for it. 

“I. WANT. TO. SEE. WHAT. HE’S. TELLING. HER.”

“THAT’S NOT VERY NICE,” Chica ventured. “IF IT DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU, YOU SHOULDN’T TAKE IT.”

Freddy didn’t respond, except to hold out his hand and grunt.

“You can’t see what-t-t—DO YOU GET WHEN YOU CROSS AN ELEPHANT WITH A FISH?—what he’s saying anyway! And you can’t t-t-touch it! You’ll scratch the screen!”

“WHERE. IS. HER.” Freddy mimed holding something between his fingers like a pencil and made short tapping gestures. 

“A nib? I’ve never seen her use one, just her f-f-f—FATHER’S RESEARCH CAN’T TAKE ME ANY FURTHER. I NEED HIS—God damn, shut-t-t up already!” he snarled, beating at the back of his head. “Her fingers.”

Freddy thought that over, then pulled Ana’s duffel bag to him and rummaged through it. After half a minute’s search—the phone buzzed twice in that short time—Freddy looked over his shoulder at the hall, then abandoned the duffel bag and walked away. He returned with a pair of pliers.

“Oh hell no,” said Bonnie, cupping the phone protectively between both hands.

Freddy gave him a _what-do-you-take-me-for?_ grunt and turned the pliers over, miming writing with one of the rubber-coated grips.

“You’re going to scratch the screen,” Bonnie warned again, but he was curious too, so it was his final protest before passing the phone over.

Freddy studied the screen, but it didn’t require a lot of study. In a very short while, he had figured out how to bring up the message box. Almost at once, his smug smile darkened.

Bonnie moved to where he could see the screen too as Freddy slowly rolled back the one-sided conversation. It began, or had ended, really, with: _U got 5 min to call me._

_Ana if I got to get in the car and drive to fucking Mormon town because U don’t answer UR phone, ima beat a bitch when I get there._

_Pony you answer now._

_Call me now._

_Girl, I don’t care if U working eating watching movies or fucking, answer me now._

_If this is a joke, I ain’t laughing._

_Where RU?_

_U there?_

The first message from five minutes ago: _Pony when I tell a bitch text me, I mean it. now u better call._

The next one was from this afternoon, one of a series separated by ten or twenty minutes each: _Whatev. Boys R here, gonna get 2 work. Text me when U see this so I know u alive, no matter how late._

_Ain’t heard from U since U sent that pic. That better be one fuck o a coincidence and we better be laughing about it in the next 60 secs_

_Occurs to me I Ain’t heard from U lately. Do I got to be concerned?_

_U There_?

Hours earlier: _I know wat U saying Yeah yeah small town. Whatev but for real did U know he was there? Call me._

_More like his dad’s evil neonazi prisonbitch sketcher twin._

_Haven’t seen him since he got out, but that looks just like his dad._

Then a picture, a photo Ana had obviously taken of herself by holding the camera at arm’s length and aimed back at her. In it, she was outside, walking along the side of the street somewhere. It was day and probably pretty hot out; she looked shiny. She was wearing that tank top with the colorful skull on it, the one that was kind of tight and low cut, and the camera had been angled right at her cleavage.

Immediately after this picture was the first message in the series: _Hey, I was looking over that pic U sent (U can guess why), and I just noticed…is that Mace Kellar creeping on U in the car behind U?_

The next message in the box was a different color and on the other side of the screen—Ana’s reply to something he’d said days before, irrelevant to this matter. Freddy glanced at it, then rolled back through the messages in order, and when he came to the end, he began to poke at the screen with the pliers again.

“What are you doing?” Bonnie asked, but he could see what Freddy was doing.

“HOW. DO. YOU. DIAL. A. PHONE. WITH. NO. BEAVER DAM. BUTTONS,” Freddy grumbled, tapping in mounting frustration at different parts of the screen. 

“LET ME SEE.” Chica had given up her position of moral fortitude and come close enough to read the messages for herself. Now she took the phone, plucked a fuzzy-flocked plastic feather from her arm and experimentally tapped around the screen for herself. In just a few seconds, the sound of a phone ringing came through the little speaker. 

Chica handed the phone back just as a man’s voice exploded through it, relief disguised as rage: “Fucking finally! Where the fuck have you been? Girl, the excuse I am about to hear had better be a goddamn Pulitzer-prize winning motherfucker and if you give me one fucking iota of your sassy fucking lip, I will be on your fucking front doorstep before you turn around, ready to knock the piss out of you! You hear me?” A pause, probably for breath, and then he said, much softer, “You are taking your sweet-ass time to start talking. Who is this?”

“FREDDY,” said Freddy.

A very long silence followed.

“Hello, Freddy,” said the man on the phone, still softly. “Put Ana on this phone.”

“NO.”

“Freddy,” said the man after a significant pause. “You don’t know me, so what I have to say next may not mean much to you, but you are just going to have to trust me when I say that if Ana Stark herself don’t convince me otherwise, I will be feeding you your balls by this time tomorrow.”

“THAT. WOULD. BE. DIFFICULT,” said Freddy with the faintest shadow of humor. “FOR. A NUMBER. OF. REASONS. BUT. THE. ANSWER. IS. STILL. NO. I’VE. PUT. HER. TO. BED.”

“You did what?”

“I. PUT. HER. TO. BED.”

“Well, wake her ass up!”

“NO. SHE. NEEDS. TO. SLEEP. SHE’S.” Freddy clutched at his speaker, muffling the obvious cheer out of the sound-bite that followed: “HI!” After a moment, already beginning to twitch at the joints with concentration, he continued, “AND. HAVING. A. BAD. TIME.” 

“The hell are you talking like that for?”

“LIKE. WHAT,” Freddy challenged.

“Like you’re punching the words out of the air.”

“BECAUSE. I. AM.”

A very long pause, then: “Who are you? I want to see a face.”

“HOW. DOES. IT. FEEL. TO. WANT.”

Bonnie and Chica both looked at Freddy in alarm, but the man on the phone merely snorted.

“You been talking to Ana, all right. How’s she doing?”

Freddy grunted. “SHE’D. TELL. YOU. SHE. WAS. FINE.”

“I bet she would. How’s she eating? That’s the real test. Girl packs on pounds like a goddamn grizzly bear getting ready for winter when she’s stressing.”

“IF. YOU. WANT. TO. TALK. I’LL. TALK,” Freddy said tersely. “BUT. IF. YOU’RE. GOING. TO. START. LYING. TO. ME. I’M. GOING. TO. HANG. UP.”

“You hang up this phone and you are going to wake up tonight with my face looking down at you.”

A smile passed like a shadow over Freddy’s face. “ALL RIGHT. LET. ME. GIVE. YOU. DIRECTIONS. TO. MY. HOUSE,” he said. “BY. THE. TIME. YOU. GET. HERE. MAYBE. AN-N-A. WILL. BE. AWAKE. AND. SHE. CAN. TELL. YOU. WHAT. A. HUGE. MISTAKE. YOU. MADE. RIGHT. BEFORE. I. TAKE. YOUR. HEAD. OFF.”

“Your house…? Wait a minute. Is this the guy? You the guy she’s hooking up with out there in Mormon land?”

Now Freddy snorted. “NO. I’M. JUST. LETTING. HER. LIVE. HERE. WHILE. SHE. SORTS. SOME. THINGS. OUT.”

Rider took that in and said, “You big? You sound big.”

“BIG. ENOUGH.”

“Yeah? And how big is that?”

“SIX. FOOT. TEN.” Freddy glanced at Bonnie and added, “IN. A. TOP. HAT.”

“Ought to be big enough, all right,” Rider said after a moment. “You know Mace Kellar? Mason?”

Bonnie could see Freddy thinking about whether or not to mention the situation around here these days. He shook his head, just in case he had a vote. He wasn’t sure just what this guy Rider thought he could do from California if this guy Mason actually showed up at the pizzeria, but from the tone of the messages he’d sent, it was possible he was thinking about coming and getting her. Bonnie couldn’t see Ana going along with that easily, but she might go; she’d laughed when he’d asked once if Rider was her boyfriend, but whatever their relationship was, it went deep.

“I. KNOW. OF. HIM,” Freddy said at last. “AND. I. KNOW. THERE. WAS. TROUBLE. BETWEEN. THEM. BUT. IT. HASN’T. FOLLOWED. HER. HERE. YET. AND. IF. IT. DOES. I’LL. DEAL. WITH. IT.”

“Oh, you sound pretty goddamn sure for a guy who don’t know Mace.”

“I. DON’T. HAVE. TO. KNOW. HIM. HE. KNOWS. ME,” replied Freddy. “YOU. DON’T. KNOW. ME. SO. YOU’LL. JUST. HAVE. TO. TRUST. ME. WHEN. I. SAY. IF. HE. OR. ANY. ONE. ELSE. PUTS. ONE. HAND. ON. HER. I’LL. SNAP. IT. OFF. AND. EAT. IT.”

“I don’t know why, but I do believe you mean that literally,” said Rider in a musing tone. “All right. I’m going to leave her in your hands, Freddy. Which means if she slips through ‘em for any reason, you’re the one I’m holding responsible. You tell that girl to call me as soon as she sobers up. I don’t get that call within a reasonable time-frame…well, I get the feeling we can spend the whole night just threatening each other back and forth, but neither one of us is going to be impressed, so I’m just going to hang up. Hey.”

“WHAT?”

“She eating? For real, this time.”

Freddy snorted again. “NOT. ENOUGH.”

“You taking care of her?”

“AS. MUCH. AS. SHE. LETS. ME.”

“That ain’t enough either, man. Take it from someone who’s had the job.”

“YES,” Freddy said with that special politeness that always drove Bonnie nuts when it was directed at him. “IT. MUST. HAVE. BEEN. DIFFICULT. TO. JUGGLE. THE. JOB. OF TAKING. CARE. OF. HER. WITH. HELPING. HER. GET. HI! FORTUNATELY. KNEE. THERE. OF. THOSE. THINGS. IS. YOUR. JOB. ANY. MORE.”

No response. 

After a moment, Freddy looked at the phone. “HE. HUNG. UP. ON. ME.” 

Chica huffed and rolled her eyes. “GEE, I WONDER WHY.” 

Bonnie, who had shown phenomenal patience throughout this entire distraction, simply said, “Freddy.”

Freddy glanced at him and put Ana’s phone back in her duffel bag. “I’M SORRY. BONNIE. BUT. KEEPING. HER. SAFE. IS. MORE. IMPORTANT. THAN. MAKING. YOU. HAPPY. SHE. STAYS. WITH. FOXY. TONIGHT.”

Bonnie’s ears did his swearing for him, but he kept his speaker quiet and even managed a nod.

“I’LL. MOVE. HER. BACK. TO. HER. ROOM. IN. THE. MORNING,” Freddy continued after an assessing pause. “SHE’LL. PROBABLY. WANT. TO. SLEEP. UNTIL. NOON. SO. YOU. MIGHT. STILL. BE. THE. FIRST. PERSON. SHE. SEES. OR. AT. LEAST. THE. FIRST. SHE. REMEMBERS. SEEING.”

There were plenty of things Bonnie wanted to say, but he swallowed them all and said, “Thanks.”

Freddy often demonstrated near-psychic abilities when it came to the things Bonnie didn’t say, and so even though he’d made an effort to keep what he was feeling out of his voice (and his ears, which was a million times more difficult), Freddy knew. Even more impressive, he knew what to do about it. He gave Bonnie a brief shoulder-clasp to show there were no hard feelings, and then he headed out on patrol. “SHE’LL. LOOK. BETTER. IN. THE. MORNING,” were his final words on the subject, which only went to show that, near-psychic or no, Freddy was sure no prophet, because the next time Bonnie saw Ana, she was covered in blood. 

And Bonnie looked even worse. 


	34. Chapter 34

# CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

All through the night, Ana fought the grip of little blue pills on her racing head and heart, but shortly before six o’clock on Sunday morning, she finally broke free. Sweating, sore, exhausted, she fell without conscious interruption from the heights of her nightmarish hallucinations to the very bottom of a deep well of sleep. When Freddy arrived to check on her before the animatronics were due to power down on their separate stages, he found her truly resting at last, if not yet truly quiet. After some consideration, he overrode Foxy’s scheduling protocols and left the two of them together in the ball pit, until he could be sure she was really down and not just recharging for another outburst. 

As Saturday night came to a late close for Ana, a new day had already begun for the rest of Mammon. Church services started in just a few hours and there were showers to take, breakfasts to prepare, and small fidgety children to be dressed in their Sunday best. 

In the Campbell house, Bats’s mom listened at her bedroom door before unlocking it and peering fretfully into the empty hall. She had passed a sleepless night, hiding in her closet like a child with her phone in one hand and a paring knife trembling in the other, listening to the man that had once been her son beat on her door while screaming at her to give him the money or he’d kill her. And believing him. Believing him.

Around two in the morning, he had left her door to rage through the house, smashing what could be broken and throwing what could not, his demands for money swallowed by profanity until it was all incoherent roaring that had not stopped until nearly dawn. She thought his silence meant either that he had passed out or stolen something and left to pawn it or perhaps died. She prayed…but was no longer sure for what or that anyone was listening. 

The house was quiet now, so she ventured into the ruins of the kitchen and, after a short silent storm of tears, wiped her face on a tea towel and began to clean up. 

Bats’s bed in the basement was directly below the sink, but the rush of water in the pipes did not wake him. He was not asleep. In fact, he had been awake for three days, subsisting entirely on chalk and twisters until the part of him that ever knew he’d been Arnold Campbell was gone and the part that knew he was Bats was fast fading. He stared at the ceiling with bloodshot, furious eyes as his hands clenched and clenched on the sheets, waiting. The only room he had not yet stripped for pawnable salvage was his mother’s bedroom. As soon as she was on her way to church, he intended to break the door down and take whatever was there to take, because over at the Kellar house, Mason’s mother would also be headed to church. Mason did not sell on credit, but he occasionally dabbled in barter if the profit margin was high enough for him, and Bats’s mother had a heart condition. Her medication was as good as gold.

Riley Hill, sleeping on the sofa where they used to play games before the consoles had all gone away, also heard the water in the pipes. He lifted his head out of a damp, sour stain and groggily listened until he had identified the sounds of a breakfast in the making. He almost got up, but then remembered it was Sunday. If he went upstairs, there might be pancakes, but then Bats’s mom would ask him to come to church with her and if she asked, he kind of felt like he had to say yes, especially if he’d already eaten the pancakes. Riley didn’t want to go anywhere today, unless it was to Mason’s place, where he could maybe cozy a hit out of one of the other low rungs on Jack’s ladder and possibly find someone else to crash with, because while Bats’s mom was cool and a great cook, Bats was, well, getting battier. In the meantime, his head hurt and his eyes were full of cotton candy, so he put his head down again and went back to sleep.

At ten o’clock, the sacrament meeting started, so at 9:45, Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Kellar left their respective houses and drove to the church. By the time the congregation had finished their greetings and were ready for the opening hymn, Bats was already on his way to Mason’s house with a plastic bag and Riley trotting sleepily along behind him. It was a long walk in the hot summer rain. They did not arrive until almost eleven, when Freddy went back to Pirate Cove to check on Ana and override Foxy’s program so he could stay with her in the ball pit instead of being forced to the stage. Foxy took it well, suffering only short spasms for a few seconds, but it was enough to bring Ana out of sleep, although not quite all the way to wakefulness. 

Watching her resettle in her fitful, mumbling way, Freddy was reminded of Bonnie’s own restless twitches. Putting Ana and Bonnie together in a quiet place might help them both calm down or it might crank them both up. For the moment, it seemed safer to do nothing. He’d look in on them again when the first set ended, Freddy decided, and bring Bonnie with him so he could see her for himself and maybe carry her to the party room if she wasn’t all the way back on her feet. But not yet. For everyone’s sake, he needed this day to pass peacefully.

At nearly the same instant Freddy had this thought, five miles away in Mason Kellar’s backyard, Bats was telling the whole damn world who broke his nose.

Mason listened with a puckered brow and half a smile. He was not yet so far gone that he hadn’t noticed four of his boys had gotten bruised up on the same night, but if he’d thought about it at all, he’d merely thought they’d gotten into a squabble amongst themselves, and if Trigger-Man and Dentist didn’t want him to know about it, then it meant Bats and Riley, of all fucking people, had beat them. Mason had been content to let their various stupid stories stand as fact all week, even if it meant letting them think they’d all fooled him—even Riley—because it just too fucking hot to bitch anyone out. Especially for in-fighting, which was a hard thing for Mason to give two shits about in the first place. And besides, it was funny as fuck when you thought about it. He’d even taken to calling Dentist ‘Dentures’ and the name was starting to stick.

Hearing the truth, that it was Rider’s big-mouthed little bitch who had actually done it was even funnier at first. If four of his guys together could not take one girl down between them, he kind of felt like he ought to be more mad at them than her. So it might have all ended there, except that in the course of his story, Bats let a minor detail slip that it had all gone down at Freddy’s. What his guys and Jack’s were doing together at Freddy’s was one good question. An even better one was, what the hell was Ana Stark doing there when she had that huge house up on Coldslip to rattle around in?

I don’t know, was the communal answer, but upon further prying, Trig added the information that she was building something.

And there, Mason Kellar quit smiling. Because to his way of thinking, there was only one thing Ana Stark could be building at some abandoned restaurant out in the desert and one person she’d be building it for, and if Rider wasn’t going to let his best fucking friend from forever ago come down to fucking California and co-chair the company, he sure as fuck wasn’t going to send his cum-guzzling fucktoy into Mason’s backyard to open up a new storefront.

In three minutes, he had the whole story out of all four involved parties (or three of them anyway. Riley was already stoned and earnestly insisting he had been ambushed by ninjas). He took some time to think, about another three minutes, then took out his phone and dialed Rider. The largely one-sided conversation that followed lasted ten minutes, consisted mainly of threats and profanity, and ended with Rider hanging up on him. He made many phone calls after that, each one lasting only as long as it took to say, “Get over here.” 

Roughly four hundred miles away, Rider was also making phone calls, but as Ana’s phone had been off its charger since Friday night and Freddy hadn’t even thought to turn it off, its battery was bone-dry and he could do nothing but leave messages she would not get until it was far too late.

At 11:43, in Mammon, Utah, sixteen men spread themselves out over eight motorcycles and one powder blue Crown Victoria and took Cawthon Road out of town. At the Valhalla Racing Stables in Bakersfield, California, Rider sat in silence for almost a full minute, then shut his phone off and got back to what he called work. And at the Edge of Nowhere, Ana slept.

# * * *

Inappropriate as the circumstance might be, Foxy had to admit he was enjoying his day off. It was the first he’d had since Circle Drive’s final months (if he could count being out of order as a day off) and likely to be the last he ever had, so he might as well enjoy it while he could.

And it wasn’t so bad, now that Ana was no longer raving and climbing the walls, but instead sleeping fitfully under his arm. Also, the power was on and pumping away in the walls, and while that did mean the crows had started their bloody racket right on schedule, it also meant the other animatronic accessories had come to ‘life,’ including the octopus above the lintel on his cabin, whose rubbery body was presently pulsing with colored lights. Even as crusted in grime as the thing was and even down here in the ball pit, its dazzling display easily allowed Foxy to fully appreciate the difference between Ana snuggled at his side and Ana snuggled at his side with her shirt off.

“And yet,” he murmured, watching the glow on the deck above him shift from red to purple to blue, “of all the ways I’ve imagined-d-d spending the night with ye, sitting up in the bloody b-b-ball-pit platonic-like never once entered me mind-d-d.”

He thought she was asleep. He’d have sworn to it. She’d been twitchy some, but hadn’t made a peep in more than four hours. So it was a startlement to say the least when she said, “What did you have in mind, Captain?” 

Her words were filed down some at both ends, but perfectly understandable. No hope that she was talking in her sleep, and only a slim hope that she’d nod off if he sat quiet long enough and forget she’d ever said it. Ana being a creature of capricious temperament, she was far more likely to interrogate him proper if she didn’t get some kind of answer.

“Nothing,” he said, knowing that weren’t good enough by a far shot. “Go b-b-back to sleep, lass. Yer dreaming.”

“I am?…I was.” She tipped her head back to look at him, although she hadn’t yet managed to open her eyes. “I dreamed of the ocean. I was lost in the red, red water and drowning. Then the ship came and you pulled me out.”

“Did I now?” he said, pleased to learn he hadn’t pitched her out and sailed away as she’d so often accused him of doing. “Mayhap-p-p a kiss for yer hero be in order, eh?”

“Your eyes were full of black,” she continued tonelessly. “Your mouth was full of blood. You reached down and pulled me from the water on your hook.”

“Ah,” he said and had to laugh at the sensation of his foolish pride souring in his stomach. “Well, it’s the thought-t-t that counts.”

“I could see through your scars.” Her limp hand twitched, turned and rose, traveling up the broken terrain of his body to trace the rough edges of his widest wound. “I could see someone in there, all bloody arms and legs. Someone was in there, someone trapped and screaming, but you hugged me. So I hugged you back.”

“Means nothing,” he said, now extremely uncomfortable. “Just a bad-d-d dream.”

“No. It wasn’t. That’s the worst part. It wasn’t a bad dream at all.” She shifted her arm and one leg, as if to push herself away from him, but the effort seemed to be beyond her and she soon sagged back against his side. When she spoke again, it was clear her moment of lucidity was fast fading.

“Didn’t catch that one, luv.”

“Why?”

“Why? On account-t-t of ye don’t open yer mouth to t-t-talk, that’s why.”

She shook her head slowly, strengthlessly. “Why…did you kiss me? That one time…” Her brows pinched slightly inward, creating an adorable closed-eye squint. “That happened…didn’t it?”

Like one of those ghosts Ana did not believe in, Foxy heard Foxanne’s uncertain whisper, _That was you, wasn’t it?_

“Aye,” he said. To both of them, really. “It was me.”

“Why?”

He shrugged with his ears so his shoulder couldn’t jostle her any more awake than she already was. “They made me t-t-to be a pirate, lass. Taking what I want-t-t be part o’ the game, as I told ye once already. Saw sommat I wanted-d-d that night. Took it. Hell, yer lucky that’s all I took-k-k. And look at ye now, senseless wee thing that ye ar—ARR! ME HEARTIES!—tucked up with me and all alone.”

She mumbled something that sounded like careless acknowledgment, even if the words themselves were smeared together past all separation. 

“Tucked up on me hook-side and half-asleep-p-p, all alone,” he amplified, running the curve of said hook along her bare back. “With yer fiddlebits half-bared and yer head half-addled, three halves what alt-t-together can’t make ye whole. What’s trust, luv?”

“Shiny.”

“Shiny,” he agreed solemnly. “Shiny like the halo I ain’t-t-t wearing. I tells ye, I had-d-d the best of intentions when I brought ye in, but Lord knows yer loverbunny were right to p-p-protest it. He’d have me guts for g-g-garters if’n he could see the things I b-b-been thinking as I lay up with ye here.”

She mumbled. The words were unclear, but her tone had a challenge in it, buried under all that sleep-sand.

“Don’t need him fighting yer b-b-battles, eh?” he guessed and chuckled. “I likes ye, lass, but ye’ve an over-inflated opinion of yerself when it c-c-comes to fighting animatronics.”

“Mmm,” said Ana and then the world went dark.

It was quick, not much longer than a blink. When he came back, his clock was only two seconds off true. Once corrected, he looked down and saw Ana’s fingers still threaded through the widest gap in his chest, her eyes still closed and her lips sweetly smiling.

“Know jus’ how t’ fi’ you,” she murmured. “N’afraid. M’a pira’ too.”

“Aye, ye are,” he said, smiling in spite of himself. “Free as the four winds and fierce as the sea herself. What-t-t in the hell yer doing with Bonnie is no-end c-c-confounding to me.”

She told him. He didn’t understand a word of it, but she sure had plenty to say. 

“Aye, well, that’s cleared-d-d that up,” Foxy said wryly and she hummed agreement and snuggled closer. He tried to leave it at that, but she was right here and Bonnie wasn’t, and such an opportunity might not come again for some time. The fact that she was still swimming in her own head and scarcely aware of what she was saying was merely icing on the cupcake. So he gently shrugged the shoulder on which she was pillowed and said, “Ye ever think-k-k of how different things might o’ been if…if only ye’d met-t-t me first?”

He knew it was a dicey question. He would have cheerfully taken a slap for it, so long as the seed of doubt found a nice quiet place in the back of her head to germinate. Her silence was unexpected and even encouraging, as if she were really giving it some thought. After a few minutes, her fingers slipped from their catching-place on his scars and slid down his chest, which would have been a fine answer if it hadn’t been followed by a snore.

Foxy sighed and moved her hand to rest on her thigh instead of his groin. “Me, neither,” he said and went back to watching the colors shift on the deck above. Eventually, he lifted his eyes even higher, to the ceiling and through it, past the storm drumming on the roof, all the way to the starry heavens where some silly folk believed some bearded old bloke with a flock of trained pigeon-people was peeping on the doings here on Earth. “Look, mate,” he joked. “I b-b-been a gentleman now going on twelve hours. Ain’t ye p-p-pushing yer luck just a wee bit? Why d-d-don’t ye go lay a whisper in old Fred’s ear and t-t-tell him—TALES OF THE SEA!—to come take the girl before I remembers I’m a bloody p-p-pirate and proves it in the most unmentionable way?”

He thought for a moment the noise he heard was thunder, perfectly timed to seem as if God had heard and were blustering in disapproval. But it went on too long…got louder…and closer…

Engines.

Frowning, Foxy shifted Ana off his arm and got up, wading through the plastic balls over to the side of the ship. He went up hook over hand, crossed the deck in two running steps and jumped over the rails. From pit to stage couldn’t have taken him more than a few seconds, but that was time enough to know there were enough engines out there to form a goodish sized party and this was not drinking-a-beer-at-the-quarry weather. Whoever they were, they were bringing the party to Freddy’s.

Foxy bounded up the auditorium steps, but made it only halfway before the East Hall door banged open on Freddy’s fist.

“I hear ‘em,” said Foxy before Freddy could bellow and wake Ana. 

“ARE. YOU. STILL. GOOD.”

Free from operational protocols, he meant. Freddy had broken him out once already and there was a time when that would have held until Freddy ordered him to resume normal function, but software needed maintaining just as much as hardware and his was well-worn. Foxy checked his diagnostics as the engines roared into the lot. “ALL OPERATING PROTOCOLS SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE,” he said with a nod.

“Wuzza?” Behind the curtain, Ana shifted. “Wha’s going on?”

“Nothing, lass. G-G-G—GUNPOWDER AND GOLD!—Go back to sleep. So, any chance this is just-t-t a bunch o’ kids looking to get their d-d-drink on and their britches off?” 

“NO. THIS. IS. SERIOUS.”

“It’s always serious, mate.”

“NOT. LIKE. THIS. I. SAW. THEIR. LIGHTS. ON. THE. ROAD. BUT. THE. RAIN—” Freddy shook his head, ears in constant motion. The engines were shutting off, making it possible to tell that some were in front and others in back. Watching all the exits. “IF. I. SAW. CARS. THERE. ARE. AT. LEAST. FIVE. IF. BIKES. AT. LEAST. TEN. BUT. I. DIDN’T. WAIT. TO. GET. A. TRUE. COUNT.”

Ten? Surely not, but… _ten_? Mostly they came in twos or threes, although four was a nice round number for a break-in. More than that and they were as apt to talk each other out of the business as into it. In all these years, the most they’d ever had to handle at one go before had been eight, and one of them had gotten away. People in a big group tended to split into smaller ones and spread out. People in a panic scattered even faster. 

“We should-d-d run ‘em off before they get in,” Foxy said, knowing better.

“NO. THIS. ENDS. TODAY.” Freddy paced from one side of the room to the other, listening down the corridor. “IF. THEY. DON’T. GET. HER. HERE. THEY’LL. GET. HER. SOME. WHERE. ELSE. SO. IF. THEY. GET. IN. WE. TAKE. THEM. OUT.”

“Ye think-k-k they will?”

“YES.”

“Through the new d-d-doors and all?”

“A. DOOR. THAT. CAN. OPEN. IS. A. DOOR. THAT. CAN. BE. BROKEN,” Freddy answered grimly.

Even through the storm, Foxy could hear old nails shriek as boards were pulled away from the building. Something hit the door next to Tux. Something else hit the safety glass in the West Hall. “They d-d-do sound a wee bit more persistent than the sort we usually g-g-get,” he admitted.

Freddy gave him a hard stare, then turned all the way around to face him and said, “UNDERSTAND. SOME. THING. FOXY. THEY. ARE. NOT. HERE. TO. HAVE. A. GOOD. TIME. THEY. ARE. NOT. HERE. TO. DRINK. AND. TELL. GHOST. STORIES. THEY. ARE. NOT. COMING. HERE. TO. GET. SCARED. AND. RUN. AWAY. LAUGHING.”

“Aye, fine, I g-g-get it. They’re here for a fight. Ye think-k-k I don’t know it?”

“NO. YOU. STILL. DON’T. BECAUSE. NO. ONE. BRINGS. TEN. PEOPLE. TO. PICK. A. FIGHT. WITH. ONE. WOMAN.” Freddy pointed at the noise. “THEY. ARE. NOT. MESSY. AROUND. THEY. ARE. ONLY. HERE. TO. K-K-KILL. HER.”

“Who is?” Ana asked, shifting in the ball pit. “Who’s here? Is it David? Where am I?”

Freddy could not really lower his voice, but he covered his speaker with his hand, muting his stage-volume to a dull rumble. “I. NEED. YOU. CHICA. COULD. FALL. BONNIE. COULD. GO. BLACK. I. NEED. YOU.” 

“Foxy?” Ana must have gained her feet, because she fell over. “Am I dreaming? Is this a dream? Where am I? Where are you?”

“I’m here, luv, I’m right-t-t here. Hush now. Where d-d-do ye want us?”

“US.” Freddy looked at the curtain, then at Foxy. “FIND. SOME. PLACE. QUIET. TO. PUT. HER—”

“Oh, I ain’t-t-t leaving her. Piss on that.”

“I. NEED. YOU. WITH. ME. OR. WE. HAVEN’T. GOT. A. CHANCE.”

“She is in no condition to b-b-be left alone, mate,” Foxy countered, amazed this needed to be said with Ana blundering around in the ball-pit behind him.

Freddy bent his head and rubbed his muzzle. “HAVE. YOU. GOT. ANY. THING. TO. TIE. HER. WITH.” 

“Tie her? Ye can’t b-b-be serious. Ye want-t-t her gagged while I’m about it?”

“I. WANT. HER. TO. LIVE. THROUGH. THIS. THAT’S. WHAT. I. WANT. DO. YOU. HEAR. THAT,” Freddy demanded, pointing toward the West Hall and the not-too-distant sounds of someone—several someones—beating on the lobby doors. Beneath the wind, voices alternately raged and whooped. “WE. DON’T. HAVE. TIME. TO. BE. NICE. WE. JUST. NEED. TO. SHUT. HER. UP. AND. KEEP. HER. STILL. WHILE. WE. TAKE. CARE. OF. THIS.”

Foxy listened, but oddly, what he heard was Ana tumbling over in the ball pit again. Trying to climb out, by the sound of it, only to fall back into the plastic sea. She thrashed weakly, unable to stand, unable to swim. Drowning. 

The East Hall door opened again and there was Bonnie, ears up and shivering. “Freddy, they’re going-ing-ing to pull the loading dock d-d-door off. Like, all the way off. The c-cl-cl-clamps are breaking. And I think-k-k they’re coming in through the front, too.” 

“HOW. MANY,” Freddy asked.

“Bonnie?” Ana moved and fell again. “Bonnie, where are you?”

Bonnie’s glowing eyes shifted toward the stage, but Freddy stepped forward, notes of the March spilling out of him despite his outward appearance of self-control. “BONNIE. HOW. MANY. ARE. THERE.”

“There’s at least-t-t four on the dock. There’s four or five more working-ing-ing on the lobby doors and there’s others…Freddy, I don’t know. T-T-Twelve? Thirteen? I don’t know.” 

“Thirteen,” Foxy echoed, curiously numbed to all emotion. “Christ, I c-c-couldn’t handle so many if they were kids at a birth-d-d-day party. Thir _teen_?” 

Freddy silenced him with an upraised hand, then pointed at Bonnie. “TELL. CHICA. TO. GET. TO. THE. ARCADE. YOU. FIND. SOME. PLACE. ON. THE. SOUTH. END. OF. THE. BUILDING. AND. HIDE. TRY. NOT. TO. DO. ANY. THING. UNTIL. THEY’RE. ALL. IN. BUT. IF. YOU. GET. A. CHANCE. TO. TAKE. ONE. OUT. DO. IT.”

“Got it.” Bonnie’s gaze strayed again toward the stage as Ana called his name, then went to Foxy. “Stay-ay-ay with her,” he said, backing into the hall so that his eyes were last to leave. “Please. You have no idea…this…I need-d-d to know she’s safe.”

And then he was gone.

“BUT. DON’T. STAY. TOO. LONG,” Freddy told him, following Bonnie out. “AS. SOON. AS. SHE’S. QUIET. GET. OUTSIDE. AND. START. TAKING. OUT. THEIR.” He stopped in the doorway, clicking and miming something with increasing frustration. “ _WHEELS ON THE BUS,_ ” he spat finally. “AND. DO. IT. QUICK. BECAUSE. WHEN. _IT ALL FALLS DOWN!_ IT’S. GOING. TO. GO. FAST.”

“Outside?”

“SOME. OF. THEM. ARE. SURE. TO. RUN. SO. MAKE. SURE. THEY. HAVE. TO. GO. ON. FOOT. AND. BE. READY. TO. RUN. THEM. DOWN.”

“Aye. I’m on it,” said Foxy, already talking to a closing door. 

Out in the parking lot, engines roared and a great splintering crack came from the lobby. Pulling the doors off. They held yet, but not for much longer. 

Foxy looked around, trying to see options where he knew he had none. He could put her in Kiddie Cove and try to hide the door, but if they found it and worked it open, she’d be good as gift-wrapped. And they’d find it. All the cargo in the back end of the Cove made too perfect a hiding place for hunters to ignore. They’d look behind every barrel, open every trunk, climb up to the deck of the fake ship and peek into its hollows. 

If he could be at all assured that she could keep herself still and quiet, he could take her into the maze. As she’d reminded him, the walls were all interchangeable. He could box her in somewhere…and pray she wouldn’t unbox herself and come bumbling out. Freddy had told him to tie her up like the cold-hearted bastard that he was, but the more Foxy thought about it, the more he realized there was a fine, blurry line betwixt a bastard and a realist.

He didn’t have time to think up anything better than where he’d wanted to put her in the first place: his cabin. 

“If’n I c-c-can get her out o’ the bloody ball-pit,” Foxy muttered, running back down the steep amphitheater steps. At the far end of the stage, hidden among all the other front panel-squares, was a swinging flap to cover the little passageway where the kiddies washed out of the ball-pit. It had been a popular hiding place over the years, popular enough that Foxy kept it blocked up now with the ship’s former figurehead. This had the added benefit of keeping said figurehead—modeled after Foxanne, of course, smiling and happy as he’d never seen her in life—out of sight where trespassers could neither fondle it nor cart it off for a trophy. 

Foxy pulled it out, freeing the trapdoor to open just as soon as Ana put her weight on it. “Oi,” he said, switching on his eyes to scan the motionless ocean of balls. “Ana! T—TIME TO SAIL!—Time to wake up, lass!”

The balls bulged and dropped, miming the waves they were meant to resemble.

“Don’t ye jump-p-p at me,” he warned. “Don’t ye dare. That b-b-be mutiny, says I, and I’ll not have it. Come on. That’s it,” he said as more balls spilled over each other, exposing her scowling, suspicious face. “Come here to me. All hands on d-d-deck, luv. Hop to it.”

“I hear noises,” she said, rising up a little higher, but not yet standing. “What’s going on?”

“Birthday p-p-party,” Foxy replied. “They’ve reserved the C-Cove. Ye’ve got to come out. Let’s go.”

“Birthday party?”

“Aye, a d-d-dozen little boys come to play with their—OLD SHIPMATE, CAPTAIN FOX! I can’t k-k-keep ‘em waiting, lass. Come on.”

She crawled, almost seeming to swim toward him, but she stopped well short of the trapdoor.

“Little further,” he coaxed, beckoning. “Keep-p-p it moving, luv.”

She didn’t budge. “There’s no party,” she said. “The restaurant is closed.”

“Right,” said Foxy, shaking his head. “Well, I tried t-t-to do this like a gentleman, but, eh, they made me a p-p-pirate.” He slashed through the mesh with his hook, pulled the tear wider as Ana dove back into the plastic ocean, then climbed up and waded into the waves with her. He had to do some fishing, but he found her and no sooner had he succeed in extracting her than he heard the lobby doors explosively giving way, followed by the rebel cries and cursing of half a dozen men pouring into the building. Dragging Ana behind him, Foxy went to the nearest hole in the curtain and saw the dim bouncing glow of flashlights in the West Hall. Not close, but not too damned far either.

“That’s Mason,” whispered Ana, peeking through another hole. “He’s here.”

“No, he ain’t-t-t,” Foxy said, lifting her up and over one shoulder in one easy movement. “Yer dreaming, luv.”

“No. No, I’m not. He’s here. He’s really here!” She began to struggle, weak and shaking in his arms. “Oh God, he’s here and I’m sleeping! Wake me up, Foxy! Wake me up! I don’t want to die in my sleep!”

“Ye ain’t-t-t going to die, luv. I’m right here. Captain Fox has ye.”

“Where’s Bonnie? I need Bonnie!”

“Course ye do,” he muttered, running her up the gangplank by the light of a flickering octopus. “Long-eared, guitar-tickling son of a b-b-bitch.”

“I broke his guitar.”

“Long-eared, _air_ -tickling son of a bitch, then! This ain’t-t-t the time for quibbling over details, woman!” Foxy kicked his cabin door open—the octopus waved its tentacles and made its happy burbling noise—and kicked it shut behind him as soon as he was through. “Well, shit,” he said, looking around.

He’d expected blanketing darkness, wherein she might fall asleep, but had forgotten she’d restored the power. The fake candles set on the shelf were ‘burning,’ filling the small space with flickering orange light, and there was no way to shut them off during operating hours. Perhaps she’d lie herself down and go to sleep anyway. Perhaps she’d sit up and stare transfixed into that flicker until the last of whatever she’d taken had faded from her brain. Or perhaps she’d get bored and wander off at the first given opportunity. Foxy was not a betting man, but he knew where he’d lay his coin if he was.

Ana had begun to struggle again. Foxy took her the half-step to the glorified alcove that was his bunk and set her down on its thin pad with a hard thump.

“Ouch,” she mumbled, sitting up only to whack her head on the low cupboards above. “Ouch! Fucking ow! Why is everything?!”

“Hush.” He pushed her back into place, holding her there while she struggled. “Listen to me, luv. I need ye t-t-to be quiet, eh? Quiet as the very grave. No matter what ye hear out there, ye stay right-t-t where ye are and don’t ye make a peep.”

“Why? What am I going to h—”

“I said, hush!”

She hushed, frowning at him with bleary-eyed concern. 

“Ye see this hook?” Foxy asked, holding his up between them.

She looked at it, brows pinched, and finally nodded.

“Ye see that d-d-door?”

She looked at that too. Her second nod was slower in coming.

“Ye t-t-touch that door a’fore I open it, and ye’ll be wearing a hook of yer own. Understand?”

She did not nod at all this time. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing for ye t-t-to worry on.” Foxy left her on his bunk, took his swordbelt from the wall and buckled it on. “Just a birthday party-ty-ty for some rowdy boys. I’ll c-c-come get ye soon as they’re gone. Ye poke yer pert-t-t nose out o’ that door before then and ye’ll be sorry. Believe that, if ye b-b-believe nothing else.”

It was his final word on the matter and he hoped it was severe enough to hold her. Foxy opened the door, setting the octopus off yet again as he stepped out onto the deck of his ship. He could hear voices in the hall, coming nearer every moment. In the little time it took him to hop the rails and steal a peek through the curtain, they had come close enough for him to see the sallow glow of their flashlights bouncing around in the corridor on the west end of the auditorium. 

Foxy let the curtain drop. His feet made scarcely any sound as he retreated across the padded stage and climbed back onto the deck of his ship. He leaned out over the bow and listened to the men—three of them? No, four—laughing and swearing and muttering at themselves in the coarse, casual way of boys having a good time. One of them began methodically searching the cargo at the back end of the room. Another started smashing the glass floats set in the nets on the wall. Someone called for Ana by name, telling her to come out, telling her she could still walk away from this if only she didn’t piss them off any further, telling her they would let her go. And then they all laughed because they knew they were lying.

He had only a few minutes at most to come up with a plan to stop them from searching the stage, and hacking off the first head to poke through the curtain didn’t count. Ana was right; subtlety wasn’t his best quality. Why did there have to be so many of them?

And suddenly, all along the wall, animatronic clams snapped open and began to sing, “ _Yar har, yar har, it’s time to sail the sea!_ ” 

Four men said, “What the fuck?” in perfect sync as Foxy clapped his good hand over his flat forehead. It was the top of the hour, time for the twelve o’clock show. 

Above the clam-beds, shiny schools of animatronic fish joined in: “ _We’ll find gold doubloons and silver spoons and all the swag thar be!_ ”

While Foxy himself was freed from his performance protocols, all the lesser animatronics were mindless, automated machines on timers. Like the candles in his cabin, there was no way to shut them off as long as the restaurant thought it was open.

Now the gulls, save that they had all come down with the ceiling, although their voices still came squawking out of hidden speakers: “ _Yar har, yar har, we’ll sail out past the rocks!_ ”

Foxy looked back at his cabin door—still closed—then at the curtain—also still closed—and finally at the control panel set in the ship’s wheel. Some controls. Just a few buttons and switches that allowed Foxy to improve the quality of his shows. Raise the curtain, lower it, dim the house lights or bring them up, pipe out the music for his various songs…no help to him at all.

The crows high in the crow’s nest on the opposite wall flapped their wings and stretched out their scraggly necks to caw, “ _On the rolling waves, we’re pirates brave!_ ”

He was out of time. The show was starting, with or without him.

All together now, clams, fishes, disembodied gulls, crows, and, in bygone days, all the kiddies who’d come to see him: “ _—We’re the crew of Captain Fox!_ ” 

Foxy hit the button and brought the curtain up.


	35. Chapter 35

# CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The curtain rose in Pirate Cove, all creaking pulleys and clouds of dust for the men below to choke on. Now Foxy could see them, and they could see him. Four flashlights hit his chest, forming a spotlight every bit as bright as that what used to shine on him during his act. He did not hide from it. He stood proud in the bow of his ship with his hook high and his eyepatch snapping down over his yellowed eye, calling loud enough for all to hear, “AHOY, MATEYS!”

“Jesus,” said one of the men, almost respectfully.

“Yeah, he has not aged well, has he?” 

“Is…Is he wearing jeans?”

“Those are Ana’s jeans,” one lad said as Foxy began the usual show-opening take-yer-seats-and-settle greeting.

All the others turned as one to fix him with a singular derisive eye. “How the hell would you know, dipshit?” one of them asked.

“That’s paint.” The lad pointed at Foxy’s hip. “Same yellow color as Jack’s mom’s kitchen.”

“Ahoy, Captain!” called the crows.

“KEEP A WEATHER EYE OPEN, LADS! THERE BE GIANT SQUID IN THESE HERE WATERS AND THEY ALL BE HUNGRY!”

“What does a giant squid eat?” asked the headless crow and the one-winged crow answered, “What else? Fish and ships?” _Caw caw caw._

“Heh,” said one of the men. “Fish and ships.”

“Hey, Captain!” called a crow. “What do we do if a giant squid grabs the ship?”

“WELL, YE CAN TRY TICKLING HIM,” suggested Foxy. “IF YE TICKLE A SQUID JUST THE RIGHT NUMBER OF TIMES, YE CAN GET HIM TO LET GO. BUT BE CAREFUL! TICKLE HIM ONCE TOO MANY AND HE’LL LAUGH SO HARD, HE’LL TEAR YER SHIP APART!”

“How many tickles is too many?” asked the crows, all together.

“Ten tickles!” called the octopus, waving all eight of its arms.

_Caw caw caw._

“I don’t get it,” said the observant boy who knew so bloody much about Ana’s jeans. He said it with the kind of earnest stupidity that suggested he said those particular words a lot. 

“Tentacles, dumbass,” someone replied. “Ten tickles? Tentacles? Idiot.” 

The other two joined in the obligatory mockery, shoving the boy around between them before moving down into the amphitheater and closer to the stage.

“Speaking of sea monsters!” one of the crows called. “What has eight legs, eight hands and eight eyes?”

“EIGHT PIRATES,” said Foxy.

“Then what do you call a pirate with two eyes and two hands?”

“I CALLS HIM A ROOKIE,” Foxy replied archly and all the crows laughed their timed laughter.

The East Hall door whooshed open and there stood another man. “What the hell is going on in here?”

His audience of four shuffled around some before one of them said, “It’s Foxy.”

“I can see it’s Foxy, fool. What the hell is he doing?”

“I dunno. Just doing his thing, I guess.”

“YAR, IT BE QUIET IN PIRATE COVE,” said Foxy as the crows finally shut up. “TOO QUIET. GATHER ‘ROUND, SWABBIES, AND WE’LL SING US A SEA SHANTY TO KEEP OUR SPIRITS UP. _OH THERE’S RUM IN THE CAPTAIN’S BOTTLE, BOYS, AND BLOOD ON THE CAPTAIN’S BLADE…_ ” 

One of the men headed for the stage. Foxy sang on, watching without seeming to notice until the man actually put a foot up, and then wrenching his whole body around to focus on him in the most animatronically herky-jerky motion he could manage. “THAT BE FAR ENOUGH, MATEY,” he bellowed. “THERE BE NO STOWAWAYS ALLOWED ON THE FLYING FOX!” 

“Yeah, Bats, down in front!” someone else called. “I paid good money to see this show!”

“BACK TO YER SEAT, YE SCURVY DOG, OR YE’LL BE WALKING THE PLANK!”

“Come on, quit screwing around,” said the man by the door, sounding annoyed. “Just find the fucking girl.”

“That’s what I’m doing. I’m looking—”

“IT BE AGAINST THE RULES TO CLIMB ON STAGE, MATE. IF YE BREAK THE RULES, YE MAY BE ASKED TO LEAVE AND YE DON’T WANT THAT, DO YE?”

“Dude, she’s not back there. If she went anywhere near that damn thing, we’d have heard all this racket. Use your fucking head.” 

The man below—Bats, they’d called him—finally retreated and Foxy launched again into his song. 

The newcomer came a few steps into the room, shining his light up and around. “Hey, sugartits, if you’re in here, you need to understand the basic math involved in this game you’re playing. There are sixteen of us and one of you. That already adds up to a bad time for you and maybe you think since it’s already going to be bad, you might as well go large, but let me tell you, there’s bad and there’s worse and then there’s Mason.” He paused in both the warning and his investigation of the mouth of the Treasure Cave to look back at the stage. “This is the same exact song he used to open with when I was a kid. You’d think they’d update his fucking material every ten years or so.”

The one called Bats gave a shot at a worldly laugh. “You used to go to the other one too, huh?”

“Shit, listen to you,” said the first man contemptuously. “Like it’s some select club. Everyone who grew up in this shithole town went to Freddy’s. Where’d you go, Circle Drive? When I say I went to Freddy’s, I mean the one on Mulholland. The one where they let you fuck ‘em. You remember Mulholland, right, Sticks?”

“Yeah, sure,” one of them muttered.

“I’m not some stupid kid, you know,” said Bats sullenly. “That whole party-room thing is just an urban legend. Everybody knows that.”

“Urban legend, my ass. While you were riding the carousel and pissing your diapers, me and the other big boys would rent out the green room for a few hours, drink some beer, smoke some ice and watch old Captain Fox up there fuck his first mate. Hell, first time he saw the full act, little Sticks over there got so excited, he joined right in the fun, so don’t ever let him bullshit you with that Juarez story. His first was Foxanne.”

“Fuck you. I don’t do plastic.”

“You did it right up the ass with the whole room watching, you cuntfaced liar. Don’t be shy. I fucked her a couple times, too. I ain’t ashamed to say it. Six strokes and you went off. If you’ve got to be ashamed of something, be ashamed of that. She didn’t even know you started and Foxy had to tell her she was done.” The man turned to Foxy. “You remember Sticks, don’t you?”

If this were a real performance, he couldn’t let himself be interrupted by an idle question as that asked from across the room, but they didn’t know that. Foxy broke mid-verse and showed them his teeth. They probably thought it was a smile. “AYE, I REMEMBER YE WELL. I NEVER FORGETS ONE O’ ME LITTLE MATES.”

The one called Sticks flushed. The others laughed and made remarks on the word ‘little’. Foxy sang on.

“Hey, up there! Hey, Captain! What say you help us find the little bitch…who is absolutely not hiding in the kiddie maze,” he called loudly, and snorted. “And you can take a turn with the rest of us. Eye for an eye and all that. I fucked your bitch, you can fuck mine. Sound like a plan?”

“ _OUR ANCHOR’S AWEIGH, BOYS, TIE OFF THE LINES! LET’S DRINK TO THE LASSES WE’RE LEAVIN’ BEHIND! YAR, BUCK UP, ME HEARTIES, HOW CAN YE BE GLUM WITH THE SEA FULL BEFORE YE AND A BOTTLE OF RUM?_ ”

“Right, whatever. Bitch, if you’re in there, you better say so right now, because if you make a bunch of grown-ass men crawl around that maze to find you, I am personally going to gouge out your fucking eye and skull-fuck the socket. Three…two…one. Fine. You are officially out of get-out-of-skull-fucking-free cards. Repo, Bats, get in there.”

“Hey, since when do you tell me what to do?” A short pause and Bats hurriedly added, “I mean, I’m going, but fuck, man, you don’t fucking boss me around,” as he rapidly descended the stairs, heading for the opening to the cave there at the foot of the stage.

“Sticks and, uh…you. Whatever the fuck your dumbass name is.”

“Riley,” volunteered the boy with undiminished enthusiasm. 

“Whatever, you two go in on this end. And I will wait right here,” he added loudly. “Enjoy the very limited time you have left with both eyes, bitch.”

Foxy kept singing. When the song was over, there was another round of jokes with the crows and then Foxy went stage-side and gathered his little hearties close to hear the tale of Blackmane’s Mutiny, the source of all their enmity. The sound of men bumbling around in the maze grew more and more distant. The last man began to pace along the rails on the upper level, shining his light around the cargo and, yes, climbing up to check behind the façade of the prop prow. 

Foxy told his story, yars and avasts and all, hardly listening to himself. He knew this was about as perfect an opportunity as he could hope to have. Grab his sword, do for the fella on the upper level, chuck the body in a barrel, go into the maze. He might get all four before any of them even knew they were being hunted. The only real danger was in that first rush; there was a fair distance between them, maybe not enough to get clean away but plenty enough to let out a good scream, alerting his mates and maybe everyone else in the building. Then they’d all come homing in, thinking Ana was on the attack, which she damned well might be by then, and he’d have to do the rest of the killing right in front of her, and it would be the messiest of messy killings, because there were so damned many of them and he couldn’t let even one get away!

The man dropped off the fake ship and kicked some more cargo around. He opened the door to Kiddie Cove, looked around, closed it, and then someone else moved out of the corridor. 

‘Mason Kellar,’ Foxy thought, although he had no reason to think so. The face was vaguely familiar, as were most of the faces he’d seen in the last ten years or so. He might have known the bloke as a kid, or his mother or father in bygone days, or his nieces or uncles or cousins. Mammon was a small town and the molds that faces were stamped from got to be damned few in small towns. 

So he didn’t know this man, in the strictest sense of the word, but if ever he could know a man merely by the way Ana talked when she talked of Mason Kellar, then he was seeing that man now. And it was silly, maybe even stupid, but he was telling a story and neither of those blokes were paying the slightest heed, so he drew his sword and pointed it out over the whole of the empty room right at the son of a bitch and snarled, “YE MADE A MISTAKE COMING HERE THE FIRST TIME! AND I MADE A MISTAKE LETTING YE LIVE. NOW HERE WE ARE AGAIN AND ONE OF US JUST MADE THE LAST MISTAKE HE’LL EVER MAKE.”

Mason glanced over at him without interest, then at the ball-pit. His head cocked. He nudged his friend and pointed.

Foxy’s story-telling animations made it easy to steal a peek in that direction. Ah. The human-sized hole in the mesh wall and a few plastic balls on the floor in front of the stage. He thought she was in the ball-pit.

Well, good. Let him think so. Let him think whatever would bring them right up close, down where Foxy could catch them both in one good jump. 

But only the other man came down to investigate. Mason stayed up top, there in the mouth of the corridor, watching. And now here came another one. And another one from the East Hall.

Lord, was there no end to them? Now there were four in the maze and four more in the room with him. No point in jumping now, he could never get them all. The window of killing-opportunity had closed.

He wondered if Freddy and the others were having any better luck elsewhere in the building. He hadn’t even made it out to the parking lot yet to have at those tires. It was only a matter of time before these birds were startled into flight and what then? Could they possibly come back with even more of their mates if some of them made back to the nest, or would they fetch the law? Certain folk had a way of forgetting how deeply they were involved in crime when the killing started, and although Foxy himself had no fear of arrest, Ana would have some hard explaining to do. 

“She’s not here!” the man called after kicking his way from one side of the ball-pit to the other a few times. “There’s…stuff…all over, man. It reeks. I don’t think—”

“OI,” Foxy interrupted. “IS ME STORY INTERFERING WITH YER CONVERSATION? TAKE IT OUTSIDE, JABBERJAWS!”

“Fuck off, Foxy. I don’t think anyone’s been here for a long—”

“KEEP IT DOWN OUT THERE, YE BLUSTERING LANDLUBBERS! I JUST BE GETTING TO THE GOOD PART!”

“Check up there,” Mason ordered, indicating the ship.

“We tried, man. You can’t get—”

“STOP YER SQUAWKING! THIS HERE BE YER LAST WARNING!”

“You can’t get close to the stage without that shit starting up,” the man concluded at a much lower volume, thumbing back at Foxy as he climbed the amphitheater steps. “She’s somewhere, but she ain’t here.”

“Then why the fuck are you still here?” The shouting back and forth had brought the others out of the maze. When Mason saw them, he backed up and swung both arms out, welcoming everyone to the impending tirade. “What the fuck are you all doing here? This is like a fucking lightbulb joke! How many fucktards does it take to search one room?” 

No one moved.

Mason looked at them, his brows pinched with mild exasperation, but when he moved, he moved fast, thundering down the amphitheater steps to the lower entrance to the Cave, where he caught one of them by the shirt front. “I find out she ran away while you were in here watching the fucking Foxy show and it’s all on you, Bats. Hear me? I came all the fucking way out here on your say-so and you better make it good.”

“I know where she keeps her tools,” Bats said fast.

“Her tools? Her fucking tools?”

And then Mason slammed the other man against the wall and punched him several times in rapid succession. The first blow knocked a yell out of the man; the rest just got the wall bloody. People shuffled, looking at their thumbs and their shoes. Foxy told his story.

“The fuck do I care about her tools?” Mason shouted, backing up to let Bats slide to the floor, sputtering and slobbering around the ruins of words. “Am I here for her tools, you dumb motherfucker? Am I here to build a fucking deck? Get up!” He kicked. “I said, get up! Get the fuck up! Get off the fucking ground!” 

Each command came with a disabling kick, but at last, Bats managed to obey, only to be shoved back against the wall.

“You better find her,” Mason said, no longer yelling. If Foxy’s mics weren’t pointed right at them, he couldn’t have heard him at all. Even so, most of what he heard was the other man’s own wet blood spitting out of his mouth and nose on every hoarse breath. “It better be you, you hear me? Because if it’s anybody else, I am finding those tools, all right, and I’m ass-fucking you with a drill. Hear me? And if I don’t find her at all—shut the fuck up, I’m not interested in any fucking thing you got to say right now. If she gets away clean, I am going to carve you up like a fucking turkey and stuff your fucking corpse in that fucking fox, just like all the fucking stories say. Hear me? Nod your fucking head.” 

Bats must have nodded, because Mason let him go and turned around, pointing at men unlucky enough to attract his eye. “You, watch the truck. You two, watch the doors, and rest of you watch everything but the fucking kid show! I don’t know what the fuck you all think we’re here for, but let me make it clear. I want Ana fucking Stark! I want _her_ , I want her _shit_ and if I see one more asshole having a good time before I get what I fucking want, I will kill a motherfucker!”

Mason left. He didn’t even bother to look at Foxy before he went, and why should he? Just a broken old toy telling stories to entertain kiddies. The others trickled off through the East Hall door, none willing to follow too close on those heels. One man, the one calling himself Sticks, stayed behind, poking through the cargo at the back end of the room. 

Foxy finished off his story, making sure they were alone and would stay that way at least a little while. When he came to the end, instead of launching into the next part of his scheduled act, he raised his hook and called, “Oi! I need help with the rigging if I’m to SET SAIL WITH THE TIDE. Who’s it to b-b-be? Ye in the back!”

Sticks looked around at all the nobody crowding the Cove, then turned all the way around and pointed at himself. 

“Aye, ugly bloke in the b-b—BLACKMANE, ME MORTAL ENEMY!—black jacket. Come here to me,” he said, beckoning with his hook and keeping his good hand on the hilt of his sword. “YER OLD SHIPMATE, CAPTAIN FOX, NEEDS A FIRST MATE.”

“Naw, man. I, uh…I got shit to do. What the hell am I explaining myself to a fucking robot for?” he added to himself, shaking his head. 

“Come on, lad. WELCOME ABOARD THE FLYING FOX!” Foxy nodded toward the ship beside him, although his eye never left the other man and his hand never left his sword. “I’ll even g-g-give ye a dip in the birthday booty chest.”

“Well…okay.” Down he came, even smiling, although he cast one or two nervous glances in the direction Mason had gone. “Got to look everywhere, right?”

“That’s the spirit. C-C-Come on up.” Foxy bent, offering his hook, and Sticks took it and let himself be pulled onstage, right up close. “What’s yer name, bucko?”

The man looked around the empty auditorium and said, “Um…Steven.”

“Aye, that’s right.” Foxy waved him toward the gangplank and followed, his stride easy, hand on hilt. “I remember ye.”

“Naw, man,” Sticks laughed, going immediately to the ship’s wheel and giving it a spin as countless other lads and lasses had done before him. “Naw, you don’t know me. I never been to this one before. This is nice. Much better than that fucking closet at the other place, huh?”

“Never heard-d-d ye complain about me accommodations at Mulholland. Course, there’s acc-c-commodations and then there’s hospitality-ty-ty,” Foxy acknowledged with half a shrug. “Ye were far more interested-d-d in the latter than the former, as I recollect it.”

The man’s back stiffened. He turned in stutters, like a stuck hand on an old clock. “Wh…what?”

“He were right, ye know,” said Foxy, nodding out at the upper level like the others were still there, laughing the way such as them always laughed about what went on in the party rooms. “She didn’t know ye’d started-d-d yet. In and out, ye were. Must have been the audience what turned-d-d ye off. Eh? A wee bit o’ stage fright-t-t, was it? Can be hard, performing for a crowd-d-d, and don’t I know it.”

His mouth opened, but he didn’t answer, didn’t make a sound.

“That’s why ye c-c-came back without yer mates,” said Foxy. “Only Foxanne were booked-d-d to close, as she most always were. Ye c-c-could have reserved her for another t-t—TIME TO SAIL—but ye were there, with that money b-b-burning a hole in yer pocket, so ye said ye’d have whoever was free. And that was me.”

The man stumbled around the ship’s wheel, holding it between them like a shield.

“And still ye couldn’t hold-d-d—FAST TO THE RIGGING—hold it more’n a minute. In and out, just-t-t as before, and then sneaked yerself away. Least ye c-c-could have done was tell the Purple Man ye were finished so’s I c-c-could be cleaned, but no. No, I had to stand there in that empty room with yer leavings running d-d-down me leg until the hour were up. Oh, I remember ye. Do ye remember me y-y-y— _YO HO HO!_ —yet?”

The man stared, white enough to see right through. 

“Aye, I see ye do. And I sees yer beginning to under-r-r—UNDERSEA KINGDOM O’ SIRENIA—understand that I’m not t-t-too bloody keen to see ye again.” Foxy started walking; the man backed up until he was trapped in the bow. “Yet ye paid full p-p-price that day and I wants ye to get yer money’s worth. As a p-p-point o’ professional pride. So.” Foxy drew his sword slow, stretching out the moment, wanting it to last even though he knew there wasn’t time to do the job right. “How d-d-do ye want it, lad? Standing up-p-p, lying down or on yer knees?”

The man dove for the gangplank. Foxy swung. Blood hit the cabin door in red splatters, but it looked black against the flashing gold and blue starbursts under the octopus’s rubbery skin. The octopus must have felt it; it laughed and burbled and waved its tentacles just as it would have done if a child had touched it.

Foxy picked up the body, still trying to crawl and blowing bubbles through its throat, and gave it a chuck into the ball-pit.

“Now remember that that’s there,” he muttered and opened the cabin door.

Ana was waiting on the other side with one of the dull dueling swords in her hand. She even took a swipe at him, but she was half-gone and easy enough to disarm. “It’s Mason,” she said groggily as he tossed the sword back in its drawer and kicked it shut. “Mason’s here.”

“No, he ain’t-t-t. Now I needs ye to—STEER HARD T’PORT AND LOAD THE CANNONS!—get back in b-b-bed and stay there while I’m g-g-gone. Can ye d-d-do that for me, lass?”

“I heard him! That is Mason fucking Kellar out there!” she insisted, weaving on her feet as she pointed in entirely the wrong direction. 

“Ana, luv—”

“Don’t you ‘luv’ me! You don’t know him! You don’t know!”

“C-C-Calm yerself. Yer having a bad dream, is all.”

“Then wake me up! I don’t want to die in my sleep!” 

“Ana—”

She lunged for the drawer of swords again, staggering even before he caught her. He tried to hold her still and pet her quiet, but she made a grab at his chest and had her reflexes been just a wee bit sharper, she’d have had him.

“That’s me g-g-girl,” he told her, shoving her hard against the cabin wall. “No quarter, eh? Ye sees an opening and ye t-t-takes it. Page ten o’ the handbook-k-k. I understand. I admire it.” He pinned her with his shoulder and the weight of his body while pulling the knot of his rope-belt loose with his unfeeling hook and metal fingers. “And if we had the t-t—TIME TO SAIL!—we’d settle this like pirates, but we don’t.” 

Pulling the rope from the loops of his jeans, he caught one of her hands and tied her wrist, then swung her around and down on his bunk. She fought every second, grabbing for his chest or his eyes whenever she could, but she didn’t drum her heels on the walls or scream up the place, and as he fed the loose end of his rope through one of the decorative iron brackets that braced the upper corners of his bunk, she abruptly went limp.

Not unconscious. He glanced at her as he bound her other wrist and saw her eyes open, glaring into space with an expression that could best be described as ‘miffed’.

“How’s that feel?” he asked lightly. “Too t-t-tight?”

She shook her head.

In fairness, she didn’t seem to be answering him as much as expressing a mute denial of the whole situation, but he unmade his knot and tried again anyway, putting a bit more arm in it this time. “And now?”

“Yeah, now it’s extremely painful. Thanks.” She pulled at her bonds, not to test them, but just to help her sit up in his narrow bunk. “Whose closet is this?” she asked, looking around. 

“Mine.” Close enough, anyhow. Sure weren’t much bigger than a closet. “Ye all right now?”

“Am I? I don’t…” The fire in her eyes died to a smoky glow. “My head hurts.”

“Aye, it’s c-c-called a hangover.”

“I can’t be hung over, I didn’t drink.”

“Aye, keep t-t-telling yerself that,” he said, petting her poor, achy head. “It’ll make g-g-good practice for when ye have to t-t-tell Fred. In the meantime, ye just close yer eyes and go b-b-back to sleep. This bad dream will soon be ove-r-r—OVERBOARD!”

“I don’t think I’m dreaming,” she said seriously. “I mean, I know I am, but I don’t _think_ I am.”

“Aye, ye are. Sound asleep-p-p in yer loverbunny’s arms, yet dreaming of yer d-d-dashing Captain Fox.” He started to go, paused, and turned back, adding, “When ye see him in the morning, luv, make sure ye t-t-tell him this bit.” 

With that, he dipped in close and pressed his muzzle to her mouth. Neither the time nor the place, but still a kiss and all the sweeter for having stolen it.

When he opened his eyes, hers were already staring into his, not with outrage and certainly not with flattered fluttery. Just waiting for him to finish so she could ask, “Is Mason here? Is he really? I don’t…I’m awake and I’m asleep and I don’t know. I need to know.”

Oh, Freddy would not approve…

“Aye, he is,” said Foxy. “But yer g-g-going to stay here, eh? Quiet and still.”

“In the closet.”

“Aye.”

She drew up her legs and wiggled around in the small space. Foxy’s bunk had never been meant to be slept in. It was only just big enough for him to sit with a small child beside him, should one of them want to snuggle before taking their birthday swag and scampering off again. It didn’t happen often. Foxy knew he was the kiddies’ favorite, for all that Freddy’s name was on the building, but the same reasons they loved him made it hard to want to be alone with him in dimly-lit spaces with no easy way out. Yet Ana managed to make herself fit and didn’t even seem too uncomfortable.

“Are you going to kill him?” she asked, beginning to drowse again.

“Aye.” Foxy put a hand on the hilt of his sword and gave his good ear a cavalier flick. “We’re all g-g-going to try, luv, but aye, it’s going to be me.”

She nodded once, then reached up the few inches her bound hands allowed as he started again to rise and pulled him back. This time, she closed her eyes for the kiss, but he kept his open, so startled was he by the fullness and the heat of it, and aye, the taste…

She released him and settled back with a shrug. “If I’m dreaming, what can it hurt?” she asked in answer to his unspoken question. “And if I’m not, then…I’ll be dead in the morning, so he’ll never know.”

With that, she closed her eyes, leaving Foxy to stare like a fool. After a moment, he groped for the door, waking the blasted octopus once more, but Ana never so much as twitched. Sound asleep again. And he had business to be about, so he left her.

By the time his metal feet had hit the stage running, he was himself again—the kiss a burning thing buried deep, as all pirates know to bury treasure—and nothing on his mind but the killing yet to do.


	36. Chapter 36

# CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Riley Hill wandered through the twisting funhouse halls of Freddy’s and thought it was kind of funny, how much he didn’t want to be there. It wasn’t even like the place itself was scary. Riley had always kind of liked abandoned buildings and this one was even cooler than most, like a cross between a restaurant and an amusement park. Everyone seemed to think it was so weird that Ana was living here, but Riley understood. And with the situation at Bats’s house getting worse every day, this place was looking pretty good to Riley, creepy talking animals and all.

And there were a lot more talking animals this time. The statues that had all been broken before were now fixed: the eyeless rooster strummed on its plastic banjo, the alligator had whole conversations with people who weren’t there, the pig waved and told jokes, and even the one at the end of the hall that didn’t have a head would talk to you if you came close enough. Riley hadn’t seen the yellow duck or the purple bunny, but he hadn’t been everywhere yet. 

When he’d been here before, he’d pretty much only seen the dining room, which was fairly normal, but once he left the dining room, he found it surprisingly easy to get lost. Yes, he was high, but he wasn’t that high. It was almost like the pizzeria had been built to fuck with a person’s mind. None of the rooms seemed completely square; the halls zigged and zagged so that you could walk right past a door without seeing it only to turn around and have it pop up out of nowhere. Once he was away from that front area—the safe area—there were no windows, no visible connection to the world outside, and only the storm to even prove there was still a world beyond this one. 

Occasionally, there were glowing things on the walls, like there’d been in the pirate room, but there were no real lights and Riley hadn’t brought one. He didn’t even have a phone. All he could do was blunder around in the dark, trying to listen through the rain and the thunder to something that might lead him back to the others. Now and then, he heard things—faint music, footsteps, metallic voices, and once, a gust of wind that made a sound like a man screaming—but he couldn’t tell where any of it was coming from and only got more lost trying to follow it. 

At one point, he came back to the same room six times and it didn’t seem to matter which of the three doors he left by or how long he wandered in the halls, every door he came to just kept opening on the same room. He had actually begun to be a little scared, but then Jack found him.

Jack was not in a good mood to begin with and finding Riley instead of the dope he’d been looking for did not make him any happier, but Riley stayed with him after that anyway. Jack told him to fuck off once and then just let him tag along. Although Jack might pretend to be pissed off, Riley could tell that this place was getting to him, too. 

And that was still weird, because this place was awesome. Riley could see the awesome, even sort of daydream just a little bit about how it might have been if he’d never come here with Bats and Dentist and those other guys, but instead just showed up to say hi to Ana. And maybe they’d have gotten talking—she hadn’t done a lot of that when she’d been working for Mace before, but this was his daydream and he didn’t know what else to do with it—and he’d have said, ‘Hey, you mind if I crash here for a while?’ and she’d have said, ‘Sure, why not?’ and that would have been cool. 

But not anymore. Now it was all wrong. And yeah, he was a little high, but he’d been way higher than this before and had never felt a feeling this strong. He felt like the whole building was alive, that he had not entered it but been swallowed. For the most part, the animals were still pretty neat, but the pirate fox had kind of given him the creeps; the pig and the alligator had looked around while they told jokes too, but the fox’s eye movements were not the same. The fox had not ‘looked around.’ It had looked at them. And Riley _still_ hadn’t even seen the duck or the bunny at all. It was as if they were hiding. 

Jack told him he was being a stupid fucking pussy when he tried, once, to talk these vague misgivings out, but while Riley had agreed out loud and laughed along at his stupid pussiness, the feeling remained and only grew stronger. In fact, if he thought he could sneak away without anyone noticing, he’d be happy to leave, even though it meant walking all the way back to town in the pouring rain. He had no good reason to think so and he knew it, high or not, but nevertheless, he felt uneasy. Not just like he was exploring a creepy building, not even like he was trapped in one, but like he was about to die in one. Like maybe he already had.

But then Jack brought him back to the signpost where the giggling pig was, which was itself just a short way down an almost-straight hall from the dining room, where the building was still sane and safe. A couple of the other guys were there, sitting on the hay-bale on either side of the pig and smoking, but they got up fast when Jack walked up, looking nervous until they got a better look and realized he wasn’t his brother.

“Where was she?” Jack asked. “I mean, I assume someone found her, right? Since you guys wouldn’t be fucking around here if she was still—”

“You want to suck my dick, Jacquelina?” one of them interrupted. “No? Then shut your fucking mouth.”

“Yeah, you’re the one who ought to be worried,” the other added. “If we don’t find her, you’re the next best thing we got to pussy.”

And they both walked off down the hall toward the dining room.

“Fuck you,” Jack said, very quietly, long after they were gone. He glanced at Riley, flushed and scowling. “What the fuck are you looking at?”

Riley fixed his gaze on the peeling posters on the nearest wall and pretended to be reading them.

“Come on,” Jack said, heading off down the hall in the other direction, so Riley followed.

After walking a while, deeper into the building where the halls got twistier, Jack found a door and opened it. Riley wasn’t sure what sort of room it was, although it didn’t really look like the sort of room that ought to be in a pizza parlor. There was no stage, just a couple tables and kid-sized chairs. One of the walls had been opened up to show the studs and all the rest looked like the walls in a kitchen, with counters and cupboards and drawers, only without the refrigerator and oven and cooking stuff. 

Jack started opening cupboards, pulling out a few plastic bottles and tossing them out into the room. Riley didn’t bother to pick them up. They weren’t like pill bottles or food bottles, but like school stuff. Glue and paint and shit like that, the contents dried up so that they rattled when Jack shook them instead of sloshing.

“This is fucking crazy,” Jack muttered, taking a handful of popsicle sticks out of a jar and throwing them blindly behind him. “Where the fuck is she hiding the stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“Don’t be a fucking moron, man. What does she do, huh? What is Ana fucking Stark’s sole reason for even being back in town?”

“Her mom died,” said Riley. Even if he was an out-of-towner himself, he hung out at the Kellar house enough to pick up townie gossip, and Jack’s mom sure had plenty to say about Ana. 

“Her aunt and that’s not what I fucking meant. I meant, why did her guy send her to go work for Mace? She builds labs, man. She probably cooks, too. That’s what she’s doing here,” Jack declared. “Trying to fuck us over, put us out of business.”

“Maybe she just lives here,” Riley suggested, opening a few more drawers to prove he was still looking too. All he found was crayons and rat shit.

“At Freddy’s? God, you are so stupid. She’s got a place to live and besides…What’s that?”

Riley followed the beam of Jack’s light and saw another door, tucked over on the other side of the room. “I don’t know.”

“I know you don’t know. I ain’t even asking you.”

“Who are you asking?”

“Shut up.” Jack pushed open the door, but had only just started to sweep his light around when he suddenly let out a yell and jumped back. Riley fumbled for his knife, already scrambling backward, bumping into shelves and cupboards and kicking old pizza trays over the tiles, but now Jack was laughing.

“What is it?” Riley whispered, ready to laugh along or start running, whichever way Jack bent. This place was getting to him in a big way. He wanted to leave. He’d never wanted anything as much as he just wanted to leave. Even if Jack turned on that light and showed him a roomful of rocks, he couldn’t possibly want it as much as he wanted to just _leave_. 

“It’s Freddy,” said Jack, leaning aside so Riley could see the huge furry face far back in the hall, looking back at him in the circle of the flashlight’s beam. “It’s fucking Freddy Fazbear. God damn. I didn’t know these things were still here.”

“Yeah,” said Riley, rubbing nervously at his arm. “There’s a duck and a rabbit, too. And a fox. The pirate-fox.”

“I know who the fucking mascots are. And it’s a chicken, not a duck, dumb-ass. But what’s he doing back here? Where are the others?”

“I don’t know. They walk around.”

Jack turned all the way around and stared at him, grinning in a wide disbelieving way. “Are you serious?”

Bewildered, Riley nodded. “You didn’t know?”

“I know they used to.” Jack aimed his flashlight back at the bear, moving its light up and down over the plastic body. “I figured they’d’ve broke down by now. I don’t know,” he added, now in a doubtful drawl. “I was just a kid the last time I been to Freddy’s. Kids are stupid. They were probably just guys in suits the whole—”

The bear’s eyelids shifted to a slant, like angry eyes on a cartoon character. 

Jack jumped back, bumping hard into the back end of the oven. He fumbled his flashlight, nearly dropping it several times before catching it in both hands and yanking it back up, shining a now shaking circle of white light on the bear’s muzzle.

The bear’s head turned and tipped so that its eyes, rather than its mouth, were in the center of the flashlight’s beam. It looked straight at Jack, opened his muzzle enough to show the lower row of its blunt, rusted teeth, and uttered a low, broken grunt of sound. It began to walk toward them. The sound of whatever mechanisms were needed to make this happen was very loud in the close air of the relatively narrow hall.

“It’s moving,” said Jack hoarsely, wide-eyed and no longer grinning.

“Told you,” said Riley and backed up as the bear’s eyes moved to him. “I just saw the fox and it’s, like, singing and stuff.” 

“How the hell can they still be moving? It’s been years.”

“Maybe Ana fixed them.”

“Maybe.” As if reminded of their reason for being here, Jack turned the flashlight out on the room again, examining the wall that had been opened up, exposing the frame. “She was pretty good at—”

The bear’s eyes lit up suddenly, like twin flashlights of his own, keeping Jack steady in his sights.

Jack broke off his next words before they were all the way out of his mouth and stared at the bear some more. 

The bear stared back at him, not smiling, not laughing. Just walking. When it reached the doorway, it stopped, looking at Jack, then looking at Riley across the room…and then looking at the other door, the open door, and the dark hall beyond.

“What’s up, Freddy?” Jack asked, lopsidedly smiling.

The bear did not reply. 

“Do they still talk?” Jack asked, turning his head slightly toward Riley, but not taking his eyes off the bear. “I don’t mean the stage act. I mean do they still talk to you? Like a conversation?”

Riley could only shrug. “I only heard them do the singing and jokes and stuff, but I don’t know. Bats and CJ said they’ve been here lots of times and—”

“Yeah, right,” said Jack with undisguised scorn. “CJ’s never been in here. Even when we were kids, he never went to Freddy’s. He’d about piss himself if you even mentioned the place. He believes all that shit they say about how they come to life—”

The bear’s head tipped slightly and it raised both arms, sort of like it was offering a hug…or silently saying, ‘Come to life? Like this, asshole?’

“—and eat people,” Jack finished after a small pause. “CJ’s a fucking tool. And Freddy’s a fucking joke.”

The bear’s eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, I mean you, Fazfuck.” Jack glanced at Riley, then got a little closer and said, loudly, “Take a bow, Freddy!”

The bear jerked backwards hard enough to throw his arms and head slightly forward, like he’d been hit with an invisible wrecking ball. His friendly blue eyes flashed, the lids slanting downward for an instant before they snapped fully open. He stepped forward and bent low over one knee, sweeping his old hat off his head in the same motion and holding it out, pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

Quick as a flash, Jack darted forward and snatched it away, retreating to a safe distance as he crushed it in his hands, then threw it on the ground, stomped it flat, and kicked it at the bear’s feet. “How do you like that?” he challenged. “Yeah? And your pizza tastes like shit!”

After a long, silent stare, the bear picked his hat up. He tried to uncrumple it, but in the attempt, he actually tore part of the brim off. He stared at that for a long time, plastic eyes unblinking and expression unchanging, as the sound of his inner works took on a new force, like a laboring engine. Music began to play somewhere inside him, just a few notes, cartoony and cheerful— _da DA da DEE dum_ —and stopped. He looked up, looked just at Jack, and reached for his own stomach. It opened like a little door, reminding Riley of a locker or maybe a little jewelry box, to judge by the glimpse of shiny stuff he saw on the inside. The bear put his ruined hat into the empty space inside himself, then put his microphone in with it and closed his stomach. He took a step forward.

“Oh, it’s on, is it?” Jack laughed again, a distinctly brittle sound, although he backed away. “You see that shit, Riley? Fucking Freddy Fazbear is throwing down.”

Riley managed an obedient little laugh. 

The bear’s eyes moved left to right, looking at Jack, looking at Riley. He came shuffling into the room, all clanking metal and wheezing hydraulics. When he moved to one side of the long table that squatted in the middle of the room, Riley and Jack both moved back, Jack to the wall and Riley against the cabinets. The bear paused as if assessing this development, then stepped back and came around the other side of the table, cocking its head when Riley shuffled further away. It took another step—Riley moved closer to Jack—then turned around and went to the other door.

Jack watched him go, smirking, then continued investigating the cupboards. Only Riley noticed that the bear didn’t actually leave; it only went as far as the doorway, briefly searching the hall outside before it turned around and looked right at him with those glowing eyes. Riley backed up without thinking, and it wasn’t until he bumped Jack that he realized how effectively, how _deliberately_ , the two of them had been herded together. 

“Jack,” he said, groping behind him.

But Jack had been climbing onto the counter to look into the overhead cupboards, so that rather than catch at Jack’s arm, Riley instead patted his ass. His heterosexuality thus challenged, Jack leapt down with a yelp and instigated a brief flurry of slaps and curses that Riley weathered out with stammered apologies and explanations, and by the time they had everything straightened out between them, the bear had shut the door and was once again walking toward them.

“HEY KIDS!” he boomed in a goofy teddy-bear voice. “IT’S TIME TO PLAY. IT’S TIME TO START THE SHOW! IT’S TIME TO SAY GOODBYE.”

“Shut the fuck up, Freddy.” Unimpressed, Jack gave Riley a final shove and went to the narrow hall where he’d first seen the bear, shining his light out into the darkness. “Hey, Stark! Come on out! We just want to talk! You here?” 

“Is she?” Riley asked hopefully, watching the bear watch him.

“Maybe. This place is a fucking maze,” he said with sudden angry heat and hit the wall. “This is retarded. We’ll never find her like this. We ought to set the fucking place on fire. That’d bring her out.” 

The bear looked sharply at him, its plastic eyelids slanted angrily inward again. Riley edged further away while its attention was diverted. The thing seriously creeped him out, even though he knew it was just a robot or whatever. It always seemed to be…thinking. And right now, what it seemed to be thinking the most was that if it could get his hands on Jack and Riley both at the same time, it would drop the friendly bear act in a second and clap them together like the cymbals in a wind-up monkey’s hands.

Riley shivered and put a lot more space between him and the bear.

“You hear me?” Jack called, sweeping his flashlight back and forth over every shallow shadow. “You hiding? You go on and hide, but you’re only making it harder for yourself! So you better come out and say you’re sorry while that’s still an option, because once Mason really loses his temper, it’s gone for good. You better be listening to me, bitch! Right now, all you got coming is a night’s hard fucking. You keep this shit up and you’re going to die! Hear me? Huh? Fuck,” he concluded, picking up a bag of ancient googly eyes from the counter and throwing it at the bear. “Where is she?”

“Maybe she left,” said Riley, backing toward the other door, but keeping his eyes on the bear, whose glowing eyes shifted back and forth between Jack and Riley and the widening space between them. “There’s lots of doors. Maybe she got out.”

“Doors are all locked.”

“Maybe she’s got keys,” Riley suggested in the hopes that, if the pursuit were declared pointless, they could all leave. 

“Nobody’s got the keys to this place, dumbass, it’s been abandoned for fucking years.”

“I don’t know, those doors look pretty new.”

“Shut up, you don’t know anything.” Jack tossed a crayon at him and kept searching cupboards. “Anyway, Mason’s got guys watching her truck, so even if she got out, she’s not getting away.”

“KNEE,” said the bear. 

They both jumped a little and looked at him.

“THERE,” said the bear after a momentary pause. 

Jack forced another laugh and glanced at Riley quizzically. “What’s he doing?”

“ARE.” The bear took a step closer; both boys backed away, but Jack hit the counter and Riley bumped a chair. “YOU.”

“What?” Jack kept laughing, just like it was Mason calling him a useless piece of shit who couldn’t wipe his own ass without washing away half his brains. “What the fuck? What is he saying?”

“Neither are you,” said Riley.

The bear’s gaze locked with his briefly, then went back to Jack.

“What?”

“He said, ‘Neither are you.’ You said the girl’s not getting away and he said neither are we.”

“That’s retarded,” said Jack after a long, stifling span of seconds. “He never said that. You’re high. And anyway,” he went on, laughing as he aimed his flashlight at Freddy’s big goofy head. “Who’s gonna make us leave, Fazfuck? You?”

“NO.” The bear’s head tipped to the side and his eyes did a weird thing, the black dots seeming to grow, almost swallowing up the whites before they shrank down again. His voice did something even weirder, skipping like a scratched CD from word to word, all different pitches and tones and emotions jumbled together to form: “I. WON’T. MAKE. YOU. LEAVE.”

“Damn right, you won’t.”

But Freddy wasn’t done. He took another step forward, saying, “I. WON’T. LET. YOU. LEAVE. NONE. OF. YOU. ARE. LEAVING.” 

That was both ominous and oddly specific and Riley didn’t think it was just because he was high. He looked at Jack, whose lips were moving slightly as he ran that string of disconnected words together a few more times before he gave up.

“Fucking thing is broken,” he told Riley, going back to looking in cupboards and drawers. “Find the bitch so we can make Mace happy and get on with our fucking lives.”

“Maybe we should just go, man. She’s obviously not here. She…She must have ran off into the woods.”

“The woods,” Jack said derisively. “There’s, like, four fucking trees in the whole town. She’s gotta still be here. Where is the fucking stuff? And where the hell is she?” 

“I don’t know.”

“I know you don’t know, dumbass. Ask Freddy.”

“Huh?” Riley looked around and was uneasily alarmed to see the bear nearly in arm’s reach and still wheezing steadily closer foot by shuffling foot. He put a little more distance between them, realizing only after he’d done it that in doing so, he’d backed away from the open hallway into the corner of the room, from which there was no easy escape. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, ask Freddy. How much clearer do I need to be? Hey, Fazfuck!” Jack shone his light at the bear, who halted his advance on Riley and turned his head to look at him. “You seen a lady running around today?”

The bear merely looked at him, his expression seeming to change subtly from menace to scornful curiosity, prompting the fog in Riley’s brain to briefly bubble up into words: _Dude, do you really expect me to answer that_?

“My mom is missing,” said Jack in a loud, clear voice. “Have you seen my mom?”

Something clicked hard inside the bear’s body. “WHAT D-D-DOES SHE LO-LOOK LIKE?”

“Bout five-eight, long dark brown hair, really blue eyes, skinny, nice tits. Have you seen her?”

That clicking again, even louder. Its head began to twitch, as if it were trying to turn away and couldn’t. “Y-Y-Y-Y-YES-S-S-S-S.”

“I fucking knew it. Where is she?”

The bear’s whole body jerked. The clicking intensified, almost like something catching inside him. Its arm shivered, then rose and pointed behind it. “P-P-PIRATE C-C-COVE.”

“And that’s how you talk to them,” said Jack smugly, heading out. As he passed the bear, he reached out playfully and patted its cheek.

The bear’s eyes flashed and the lids came down at a furious slant. “RULE NUMBER SIX,” it said, its robotic voice rising to an ear-splitting, unreal level of loud, loud enough to make the hidden speakers inside it squeal with feedback like a second, demonic undervoice. “DON’T TOUCH FREDDY!”

“Fuck you,” Jack said and poked the bear in the nose. It made a sound like a puppy’s chew toy. 

In the next instant, the very next, the bear’s still-pointing hand snapped closed into a fist. Its arm drove forward and suddenly Jack’s head was folded in around the bear’s wrist, Jack’s body was hanging from its arm, Jack’s flashlight was falling from his twitching fingers and clattering away from his kicking shoes.

The bear’s head turned. As it looked at Riley, it brought its other hand up and shoved Jack off with a wet sucking sound onto the floor: _ssshhhhhluck_ -thud. 

Jack’s face was gone, transformed into a great cave with hair on top. There was surprisingly little blood, just what had squeezed out from Jack’s ears in a gluey pink-red paste. Riley laughed, because that had been the last command his brain received—Jack had booped the bear’s nose and it was funny, so he should laugh—and then he screamed and then he ran.

He had never run so fast in his life. He went a million miles an hour from one end of the hall to the other, careening around the first crooked corner and straight into the hard fuzzy chest of the purple rabbit. The rabbit tipped back and even over the death-metal drumming of Riley’s heart, Riley heard the thing distinctly say, “Fuck,” right before it fell over. Its legs kept making walking motions, rocking the thing back and forth on the ground like an upended turtle with Riley on top of it, human limbs tangled up with plastic ones, hearing nothing but footsteps, slow and heavy but still coming, and the _whirr-clack-click_ of the rabbit’s inner works as it tried to right itself. In a dumb panic, Riley flailed, beating and kicking at everything in reach as the rabbit floor-walked and giggled and spat, “W-W-Watch the f-f-fucking face, asshole! Freddy! I’m d-d-down! Come g-g-get this little sh-sh-sh—SURE IS A GREAT DAY FOR PIZZA—shit!” 

At last, Riley’s feet found the floor instead of more rabbit, and he was up, up and away, hurtling into the dark and bouncing off the walls like a pinball to avoid coming within grabbing range of the pig, who only giggled and waved when he ran by. He could hear the bear and the rabbit clanking heavily along behind him. Their footsteps grew less and less distinct, but they were still coming. They’d find him. He had to get out and he had no idea where he was. 

Riley stumbled blindly down one arm of the intersection, plunging through the first open doorway he found, and into the old arcade, where his foot came down immediately on a flashlight. The flashlight rolled; he skidded comically across the floor, both feet pedaling and arms flailing, before inevitably going down. The flashlight spun away. Before it hit something and shut itself off, he caught a glimpse of Bats on the ground just like him, all wide eyes and open mouth.

“Bats!” Riley whispered, almost sobbing with relief. “Bats, where are you, man? Bats, they got Jack! You gotta get me out of here, man!”

Bats did not answer, not even to tell him to shut up.

Riley crawled along in the dark, slapping at the floor and finding only broken tiles, until his palm splashed down in something warm and wet. He recoiled, wiping spastically at his chest and scrambling back until his foot bumped something light and plastic. The flashlight. He groped for it, found it, and switched it on.

Its beam struck two vertical orange pipes dead ahead of him. Not pipes. Legs. Two legs, standing over Bats, whose body was lying a little ways from his head, still staring at him. Riley began to laugh again, or maybe cry, it was hard to tell. His flashlight beam shook as he lifted it past the knobby knees of those orange legs, past the cracked and dingy yellow casing of an animatronic body, past the stained white baby-bib partially obscured by great wet clots of red, past the plastic beak with metal teeth drooling blood and matted with strips of Trigger-Man’s Marilyn Manson shirt, until he could see the plastic eyes staring down at him. Seeing him.

“I’M HUNGRY,” said the chicken. “LET’S EAT!” 

Riley screamed.

The chicken stepped over Bats and came for him.

Riley leapt up and ran back into the hall, dodging the rabbit’s grasping hand with the grace and finesse of pure, dumb panic. The rabbit caught him by the shirt, but Riley stripped out of it without stopping or even slowing down, sprinting away like his life depended on it because it did, it absolutely fucking did, and even if it wasn’t all that great a life, it was the only one Riley had and he’d never wanted it so much as he did in that moment when he really and truly believed it was over. So he ran, and as he ran, without warning, there was light.

White light, blindingly bright. It fell on him in a tight cone, shining down not from heaven, but from a camera mounted above one of the doors. It turned as Riley raced by, keeping him in the spotlight so that all the animals could see him, but maybe it was from heaven after all, because in turning, it showed him the door. He couldn’t read the word on the sign above it, but he knew what the color and the shape of it meant and it meant EXIT. 

Riley threw himself at it, his feet hardly hitting the floor, and just before his reaching hands could hit the push-bar, the door opened. He couldn’t stop, could only throw himself out with his last burst of speed and hope for the best. He caught a glimpse of a glowing plastic eye—just one—and the glint of metal through the mangled carapace that was this thing’s body, and then he was flying past it, exploding out into the rainy afternoon, and there was Mason’s car and it was ten running steps at the most, at the very fucking most, so in ten running steps, Riley would be in that car and safe. Nothing could get him in the car. All he had to do was hole up and wait for help. Someone would come. Someone would—

Pain, stabbing down into his shoulder and out his back. Riley’s feet kept moving him forward, but the pain yanked him back, snapping his body like a towel in the locker room, and Riley screamed because it hurt and screamed again because the car was right there, ten running steps too many, and then he was back in the pizzeria and the emergency exit door whoofed shut and quietly closed.

The pirate fox walked fast up the hall, dragging Riley with it. He tried to struggle, but could find no hand to grapple with where he was held, no fingers to pry loose from his burning shoulder. He had seen the pirate fox onstage, but he still didn’t fully understand. It took seeing the fox raise its hand up for shade against the camera’s light for Riley to realize that he had not merely been caught, but hooked. 

“Aye, enjoy the show, ye son of a b-b-b—BILGERAT,” the pirate growled as the camera swiveled to track him.

Was that Ana, then? Was she watching? Riley wanted to say something—sorry or something, anything that would make her let him go, but the intersection was just ahead, with the rabbit and the bear and the bird all standing together and waiting, so Riley grasped at the last straw of hope he had left. He closed his eyes and let his head loll. He played dead.

“THERE’S. OTHERS. OUTSIDE,” the bear said as the pirate’s rapid stride slowed. “GO.”

“Already-dy-y got ‘em.” The pirate shoved Riley forward, shaking him off his hook onto the floor. 

Riley fell limp and lay still, keeping his eyes shut and taking shallow breaths when he breathed at all. Even when one of them—the chicken, by the feel of the foot—gave him a testing nudge to the ribs, he didn’t move or make a sound. 

“But I m-m-made a hell of a mess out there,” the pirate was saying. “Three men— _ON A DEAD MAN’S CHEST_ —lying out in the g-gr-great wide open, with all their bits and puddles for any ’n all to see, but that’ll k-k-keep. How many d-d-did ye get?”

“Where’s Ana?” asked the rabbit.

“ _WHEN YOU TRACK IN MUD OR SPILL YOUR CUP, IF YOU MAKE A MESS, THEN CLEAN IT UP!_ ” sang the chicken. “ _DON’T WAIT FOR LATER, DO IT NOW! THEN YOU’LL HAVE A HAPPY HOUSE!_ ”

“Never mind that-t-t,” snapped the rabbit, mechanisms whining with sudden movement. “Where’s Ana? Did you leave her? How c-c-could you _leave_ her?”

“Calm yerself, Bon. She’s tucked away in me cabin, safe as houses. Hold-d-d—FAST TO THE RIGGING—hold up,” the pirate said sharply as heavy footsteps rushed away. “I said what’s the t-t-tally here?” 

“Who c-c-cares? What, are we k-keeping-ing-ing score now? Let go!”

“Look, mate, I heard one o’ em say there were six-t-teen, and I’d just as soon know if we g-g-got ‘em all before I gets t-t-too comfortable. How many?”

“I g-g-got four,” the rabbit said, subdued. 

“THREE,” said Freddy. 

“WOW, ME TOO! ONE-TWO-THREE!”

“And I got-t-t three outside and another in the C-C-Cove,” said the pirate, and now he gave Riley a kick. It hurt a lot more with his metal foot, but Riley rocked with it and did not make a peep. “And this sorry shit. We’re still m-m-miss—MIZZENMAST—missing one.”

“OUTSIDE,” ordered the bear. “BONNIE. CHECK. THE. PLAYGROUND. CHICA. THE. KITCHEN.”

Just as he said that, came Mason’s distant yell: “I’ll kill you for that, you cunt!”

The pirate spun around—the sound of its metal feet skidding on the tiles was unmistakable—and ran, faster than Riley ever could. The others followed in their own shambling, clunking, wheezing speed. The light stayed on him; Riley could see it, red behind his eyelids; he could hear it, tiny whines and whirrs as the camera watched him. He lay still until all their footsteps were lost, just in case one of them looked back, and soon heard a shrill metallic shriek and then a human one and then nothing.

‘Now,’ he thought. Now, while they were distracted. While they were…eating.

He lifted his head, but some part of him must have already known, because he kept his eyes squeezed shut, like not seeing meant it wasn’t there. Tears squeezed out anyway. Snot ran hot and salty into his mouth as he whispered, “Please go away, okay?” and then dropped his head into the shaking cradle of his hands and began to cry.

The tinkling toy-box notes of some happy little song sounded as the bear bent, creaking and wheezing, and put a hand on Riley’s throat. There was still blood on it and pasty chunks of stuff that was probably Jack’s brains. Riley could feel these clots squirting out between the bear’s fingers and dribbling down his neck. He struggled, but although the bear’s fur was patchy and his plastic skin was cracked, the strength of his grip remained unbroken. 

“Please just let me go!” brayed Riley. To the bear. To the camera. To the God it was not too late to believe in, if only he got away. “Please, man! Please! I won’t do it again!”

“YOU. ALWAYS. SAY. THAT,” said the bear, lifting him by his neck. The weight of his body was enormous, not like he was hanging but like he was being pulled in half. “YOU. ALL. ACT. LIKE. IT’S. JUST. A. JOKE. LIKE. IT’S. NOTHING.” The bear’s eyelids slanted down with twin wheezing sounds. “MY. HOME. MY. FAMILY. MY AN-N-A. IT’S. ALL. NOTHING. TO. YOU.”

“I swear, man. I won’t…I won’t ever talk to her again! I swear!” Riley tried to look at the camera, but with his neck in the bear’s grip, all he could manage to do was roll his eyes. “Please don’t let him hurt me!”

The camera’s lens whined, zooming in close, hungrily watching.

“WHY. NOT. YOU. CAME. HERE. TO. HURT. HER.” That music began to play louder somewhere inside the bear’s head. Happy music, tinkling, an almost familiar cartoony song. The bear’s eyes flickered in time with the sounds. “JUST. A. FUN DAY AT FREDDY’S! SIXTEEN. YOU. HAD. TO. BR-R-R-ING. SIXTEEN. MEN. TO. HURT. AN-N-A. FOR. NO. REAL. REASON. JUST. FOR. FUN.” He shook his head. “AND. YOU. THINK. I’M. THE. MONSTER. WELL. YOU. KNOW. SOME. THING.” He leaned in a little, his mouth opening to show the blunt pegs of his teeth. “YOU’RE. RIGHT.” 

The bear’s gaze shifted to look at the camera down the hall. The music played faster. The pupils of his eyes grew, swelling from the inside out until his eyes were entirely black, except for two pinpoints of white light at their centers. “I. KNOW. YOU’RE. WATCHING,” he said, speaking slower and with an increasing sense of difficulty. “I. HOPE. YOU’RE. LISTENING. I. WANT. YOU. TO. KNOW. THAT. I. AM. THE. MONSTER. NOW. AND. YOU’RE. THE. BROKEN. TOY. AND. AN-N-A—” The bear raised its free hand and knocked it hard on its cracked chest. “—IS. MY. FAMILY. DO. YOU. HEAR. ME. MINE.” Static erupted from its speaker, louder and louder, until it suddenly washed out and in the silence, the bear said, clearly, “NO. ONE. FUCKS. WITH. MY. FAMILY.”

The bear raised Riley higher, showing him to the camera. His fist, already a collar, clenched.

Riley felt the pop. Everything went numb all together, all at once. In that last endless moment as he died, he smelled pancakes, the kind Bats’s mom made. He tried to hold onto that, because it meant he was sleeping over at Bats’s house right now and dreaming all this, and if that was true, he could wake up. He could go upstairs and Bats’s mom would be making breakfast and she’d give him some, warm from the pan just like a TV mom. He’d offer to mow the lawn for her and she’d say not today because it was Sunday and then ask him if he wanted to go to church with her and maybe…maybe he would. It wasn’t too late. He could still wake up. Go upstairs. Eat pancakes in a sunny kitchen. It would be a beautiful day. All he had to do was wake up.

The last things he saw—bear and camera and walls and floors—spun around him as Riley was thrown away. He could not breathe, but needed to. His eyes burned, dry and throbbing, as his sight filled up with dark spots. Snot and tears trickled sideways across his cheek; it itched. The bear left, heavy footsteps receding, fading more like smoke than sound. The camera watched it go, then moved back to Riley, then shut itself off and let Riley die alone in the dark.

# * * *

After Foxy left, Ana opened her eyes and got to work loosening her bonds. Foxy made a pretty good pirate in his stories, but it was apparent he’d never been a real sailor; he tied a lousy knot. Once she was free, Ana helped herself to another sword from the drawer where he kept them—dull as a spoon, but better than nothing—and left the cabin.

She did not think about this decision. She couldn’t have, even if she wanted to, but she didn’t really have to. Foxy’s ship was no more a ship than he was a pirate. His cabin had not been designed around a living person’s comforts. It was not safety, only a damn small area with no hiding places and only one way in or out, which meant that if Mason came in, she was not getting out. She was in no condition to fight even in the open, let alone in this coffin-sized closet. She did not believe she was asleep and she knew she couldn’t be high, but something was for sure wrong. Her body felt thick, slow to respond. Her skull was splitting open from the inside; the slightest sound struck with almost paralytic force, which ironically made it hard to hear, and she couldn’t seem to make sense of the things she did hear. True thoughts were too complicated, like beautiful birds full of feathers diving together in a senseless display. Ana’s thoughts were more like worms, already cut in half, writhing in response to only the most basic stimuli. The cabin was not safe. She did not see the risks and weigh them; she absorbed them through her aching skin and crawled away.

She didn’t go far. Once on the deck, she could see she was on the ship, and although she knew it wasn’t a real ship, her simple wormy reasoning told her that where there was a ship, there was a sea. If she was in no condition to fight, she was for damn sure in no condition to swim.

So she crawled over to the bow of the ship (her hands slipped in cool wetness that had puddled on the deck; her eyes registered the color red; she did not notice the blood). Squeezing herself small in the pointed prow with her sword in her hands, she waited either for Foxy to come back or to wake up in Bonnie’s arms back in her own bed in the party room. 

Time is different in the dark, not just on the outside, but on the inside as well. Pressed into the bow of the ship, made small and helpless, alone, Ana was a child again, cramped and terrified, waiting for something bad to happen. But discomfort and darkness and even the goddamn threat of death were no match for the inexplicable hangover she had and incredibly, she began to nod off.

She fought it, but her eyes would close and open again with no way of knowing how long she’d been out or even if she’d been out at all. She could hear nothing, see nothing. Her legs were dead; everything else hurt. All her senses were reduced to the ache in her joints and the coppery taste of old panic in her mouth.

And then she heard Tux’s bright, plummy voice: “WHY, HELLO THERE! YOU LOOK LIKE AN INQUISITIVE CHAP! HOW CAN I HELP YOU?”

Tux, like all the fake animatronics, had a number of preprogrammed fidgets that he cycled through when not directly interacting with someone, but unlike all the others, his fidgets were quiet ones. He brushed at his lapels, adjusted his gloves, flicked the pins where his ears used to be…but he did not talk. He only ever spoke when someone was right in front of him.

Ana listened, but heard nothing more.

And then, just as she’d decided whoever it was had gone, she heard footsteps. Not the heavy lurch and drag of Bonnie or Freddy and not the quick, heavy clank of Foxy, but someone relatively light. Someone in shoes, crunching over broken glass on the carpeted upper level, then coming down the steep amphitheater steps.

Ana shifted, but she was wedged in so tight to the prow that even that little movement made a scraping sound against the wooden slats. She held her breath, but now could hear nothing past the pounding of her heart. Where was he? Coming to the stage or just heading for the other door? She didn’t know and couldn’t know…until she heard the heavy flap of the curtains shifting and saw a circle of light sweep across the cabin of the Flying Fox, briefly returning to the octopus before moving on, exploring every shadowed corner big enough to hide in and resting at last on the closed cabin door.

Ana listened. 

Whoever it was listened, too.

The next thing she heard was the unmistakable sound of someone climbing onto the stage, checking out the ball-pit, circling the ship once before coming straight up the gangplank.

Ana watched, eyes wide and legs numb, as Mason boarded the Flying Fox. He had a flashlight in one hand and her own ballpeen hammer in the other. If he’d turned just a little when he reached the deck, he wouldn’t have been able to miss seeing her. But the octopus was glowing, pink and orange and purple lights moving outward from its bulbous body and down its many arms, and that took all his attention. Mason looked at it, touched the dark spots that had splattered over and dripped down its silly, smiling face, then ducked through the doorway and shone his light around the cabin. 

This was the only chance she was going to get. Ana rocked forward onto her fingertips, letting her legs free to fill with the leaden heat of blood-starved muscle coming back to life. As soon as she trusted herself not to fall over, she readied her sword, gritting her teeth against the pins and needles sensation even the slightest movement provoked and praying he noticed the slightly out-of-place panel on the back wall that was the concealed door to the parts room backstage. Trying to figure out how to open that might keep him occupied long enough for Ana to sneak off the deck, if only as far as the Treasure Cave. She knew she couldn’t outrun him, but if she could get enough of a head-start, she could change the maze around her and maybe fool him long enough to get away for real…

Mason looked behind the door, under the captain’s table, even in the booty trunk, but the backstage door was damned near invisible and he never even saw it. He paced once around the table, hit one of the fake flickering candles with the hammer, and then he came right back out. His flashlight’s beam hit her dead in the face.

Ana’s legs remained stubbornly dead. She leapt, an ungainly froggy bound that carried her only midway across the deck, but was enough to startle him into jerking back instead of bringing that hammer down. He hit his head on the cabin’s door-frame, giving Ana the split-second distraction she needed to throw herself forward and swing her sword with all her strength at his knees. The sword was dull, but solid. He staggered, falling through the open door and backward onto the table, and she hit him again— _whap-whap_ —aiming for the face to make him put his arms up before bringing the sword down hilt-first with all her might on his balls— _whump_. 

His body closed up like a clam, folding over and falling sideways, raking his shirt up and scraping his back bloody on the rough edge of the table as he hit the floor. His face turned purple, neck bulging, veins visibly throbbing. Ana made a grab for the hammer, then had to leap back as he swung it at her, instinctively attempting to parry with her stupid toy sword. 

The blow numbed her hand all the way up to her elbow. She dropped the sword and did not attempt to recover it. Scrambling away, her legs still heavy and only half-there, useless as the tail of a mermaid, it was all she could do to keep ahead of the _whack-whack-whack_ of the hammer chasing after her. 

“I’ll kill you for that, you cunt!” he roared, and dove after her.

She rolled and kicked again, both feet hitting his chest and throwing him backward. If she’d hit a little harder or even if he’d hit a slightly different way, she could have sent him right over the rails and into the ball-pit. Luck wasn’t with her this time, but at least he was disorientated and off his feet.

Ana flipped over and crawled on her arms for the gangplank, slither-dropping onto the stage below, and finally got her legs under her. She fell on her first running step. If she hadn’t, the hammer he threw after her would have cracked her skull for certain. As it was, it whipped overhead and hit the curtains, sliding down where she could grab it. Now she had the hammer, and as he thundered down the gangplank at a limping run and leapt at her, she rolled onto her back and swung for all she was worth. 

He was fast, but not fast enough to avoid the blow completely. He caught it on his arm, howled and leapt back, then kick-stomped at her several times in rapid succession. He got her in the ribs twice; she hit him with the hammer once, right on the knee. His leg folded up. He fell back and she scrambled away, now almost running, and fell off the stage. Her left ankle and right wrist twisted when she landed. She dropped the hammer, had to grab it with her dumb hand, where it was next to useless to her, and scrambled away as fast as she could go. She knew she’d never make the door, so she aimed herself at the Treasure Cave, hoping to lose him in the maze.

She made it three lurching steps before he slammed into her back, knocking them both to the ground. No hope for it. Face-down, no leverage, no rescue. Mason had her. It was all over but the bleeding.

Ana threw the hammer away into darkness, surrendering her weapon to rob him of it. He grabbed after it, swearing, then seized her by the hair and slammed her face into the floor—once, twice, three times. Long-buried instinct helped her neck go limp, helped her tuck her chin on the downswing each time so that she hit mostly with her forehead and not her nose or jaw, but stars exploded behind her eyes even so and her hearing buzzed out to a drone. He rolled her over, yelling into her dazed face, then punched her. 

She rolled with it, unable to fight back, just hoping to mitigate as much of the damage as possible as he hit her over and over. Now she could see him, see Mason’s features contorted with that ape-rage that said he wasn’t stopping until she was dead, but even as she recognized this, she still didn’t know what it meant that she could see him, not even when she heard that shrill metallic scream and saw the flash of steel slice through the black and hit his arm as he raised it for another punch. His hand seemed to pop right off and tumble away, leaving blood like a fountain going up and splashing down, hot, over her face.

Mason jerked back, blinking at his handless wrist with an expression of comical frustration, as if his hand had jumped off on its own, leaving him in the lurch right when he needed it most. Like, who could you count on, right? But he could only blink the once, because before he could blink again, the hook swept in from the left, punched in under his jaw and came out his cheek, and his weight was gone just that fast.

Ana breathed through a mouthful of blood, staring up into the darkness, listening to the hack and grunt and splatter that surely meant something, just…not right now. She summoned the last of her strength and rolled onto her side. She breathed a little more. She was sleeping, that was all. She was dreaming and adrift again in the red, red waters. Maybe Mason was really here and maybe he wasn’t, but she was for sure sound asleep, and whatever consequences must follow would just have to wait until she woke up in Bonnie’s arms or…or did not wake up at all.

Ana drew up her legs, folded in her arms. She closed her eyes and pretended she was sleeping. She pretended until she was.


	37. Chapter 37

#  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Ana must have opened her eyes a dozen times after that—every time the crows went off, in fact—but she couldn’t seem to stay awake. Her sleep was both thin and deep, like ice over rushing water. She fell through it, drowned, was dragged by the current along the jagged rocks, and ejected only to fall through again. Memories masqueraded as dreams, and vice versa, until at last she broke free and woke up for good. 

She did not, could not, immediately move. Her body’s hurts were so many and so overwhelming that in those first few moments, she could not tell what hurt at all. As reality asserted itself, the boundaries of pain were illuminated and eventually, she could take honest stock of herself and decide she was not actually dying after all, just beat on damned good. She could still taste the blood in her mouth, feel the heat of the bruise over the side of her face, and there was a knot the size of an egg on the back of her head where she supposed she’d been slammed into the floor, although she couldn’t remember it happening. A knock on the head would do that, she knew. Make you forget things. Make you imagine things. Make you dream with your eyes open and doubt you’d ever come all the way awake. This was not her first beating, not even her worst. 

Although it could have been. Should have been. She could not remember it, beyond a vague impression of Mason’s face above her. And his fists. Had he been alone? She had the idea that there had been others. Just the idea, not a memory, unless it were several steps removed, like a memory of a picture of a page of a diary from a blurry copy of a video tape. Perhaps it was only the fact that she had rarely if ever seen Mason do anything alone. He liked to have his boys around him, especially when it came to teaching them an object lesson about power and control. So there had to have been more of them, whether she remembered it or not. 

Where were they now? Gone to find her tools and get a handsaw to make the job of transporting her body easier, she supposed. But if so, why was she even still alive right now? And for that matter, her shirt was gone and she seemed to be missing her left boot, but her bra was still on and so were her jeans. What self-respecting group of armed thugs didn’t at least take turns at the girl they’d come to beat to death?

She thought about it, and while she was thinking about it, the plastic clams along the wall suddenly popped open and started singing. Then the fish. And then the crows. Familiar song, familiar sequence. But when it came to the end, the curtain did not go up. Foxy did not appear on the deck of his ship where she could sort of almost maybe remember hiding. The crows ahoyed and told their half of the jokes that opened his act, but Foxy wasn’t there.

Ana sat up. It hurt her arms, her head, her ribs—her everything. She forced herself to take a deep breath and called, as loud as she could make herself speak, “Foxy?”

Nothing. No answer. No opening door, no thump of metal feet on wooden boards. He wasn’t there.

Or couldn’t answer.

She climbed to her feet, staggered to the wall and held up her watch to the faint silvery shine of an animatronic fish. Five o’clock. It was a testament to Ana’s state of mind that she had to stand there under the glowing fish, listening to the crows, knowing that the source of the dread knotting up her guts stemmed from the fact that Foxy was not putting on his scheduled show, and still had no way of knowing if that meant five in the afternoon or five in the morning. 

She limped out into the West Hall, pulling the black plastic away from the windows as Tux complimented her ass on its intelligent and inquisitive demeanor. Sunlight, the pale, piercing sort of sunlight that only follows one hell of a storm. Afternoon, then. Slower to sink in but more important to take note of, the parking lot was empty. 

She knew that didn’t necessarily mean that Mason and his boys were gone, but she believed it at once anyway. The building just felt empty.

…the building felt _really_ empty.

She looked at Tux, but it wasn’t Tux she was thinking of.

Keeping one hand to her head to hold the headache in, Ana staggered down the East Hall, checking every door she passed along the way. All empty. Her stuff in the party room had once again been thrown around, but it all seemed to be there. Even her tablet was still on its charger and there was no way Mason would have left that behind. Although robbery might not have been his priority when he came here, he would have considered it his due reward for the thankless task of killing her. But it was still here, untouched, and the job of killing her, unfinished.

Not unfinished. Interrupted. And not by local law enforcement. Sheriff Zabrinsky didn’t like her, but he wouldn’t have left Ana lying on the floor in Pirate Cove after she’d taken a beating as bad as this one felt like. If nothing else, he would have arrested her, too. So that meant someone else had interrupted them…

“Freddy?” she called.

Silence. 

Ana continued on the last length to the dining room. The new doors in the lobby had been broken open and could not fully close again. So it was dim, but not dark. And not quiet. Through hidden speakers on the wall, happy music played at a background volume, accompanying the joke-segment of the scheduled act, but no one was onstage.

They had to be here. They had to be. 

“Bonnie?” 

Something in the kitchen rattled. Then eyes, blessed eyes, glowing at her from the doorway. “IT SURE IS GREAT TO SEE YOU!” Chica said. “ARE YOU OKAY?”

“Oh wow, it’s great to see you, too!” Ana crashed across the empty room and finally fell against the animatronic, who in turn fell back against the wall. Chica grabbed her as much as Ana grabbed Chica; they steadied each other, neither one secure on their own feet. “Where is everyone? Where’s Bonnie?”

“DON’T WORRY, KIDS! BONNIE THE BUNNY WILL BE RIGHT BACK!”

“But where is he?” Ana pulled away in the faint hope that making eye contact would help Chica stay on target, only to lose the question herself. She did not exactly forget Bonnie, but the importance of finding him was hooked violently to one side as she got a good look at Chica’s bib. 

Whatever those reddish-brown smears across the playful letters spelling LET’S EAT were, they were not pizza sauce. 

“What is this?” she asked shakily. Her mind’s wheels, toothless and unoiled, tried to present options. She refused to look at them. “What…What have you been eating, Chica?”

“WHO, ME? PIZZA IS MY FAVORITE FOOD! I LIKE LOTS OF HEALTHY VEGGIES ON MINE!” The last few words distorted as Chica twitched and shook her head, then looked down at herself. She touched her bib, hesitated, then reached out and gently touched Ana’s chest. When she took her hand away and held it up before Ana’s eyes, her yellow fingers were stained with red.

Ana stared at that, then looked down and for the first time noticed she was covered in blood.

Holding out her arms, she stared at herself in owl-eyed confusion, unable to comprehend what she was seeing or how she had managed to not see it all this time. She could distinctly remember looking right at her chest, seeing the bra but not this…this fucking gorefest. Where had it all come from? She touched her nose; it didn’t feel broken. Her teeth were all there. She had small cuts everywhere, but no real wounds. 

And yet, she had been soaked in blood.

“ARE YOU OKAY?” Chica asked.

“I’m fine,” said Ana, baffled. “I think so, anyway. Are you?”

Chica nodded.

“Why aren’t you onstage? It’s showtime, right? Where is everyone?”

Chica tapped her fingertips and did not answer.

“Foxy’s not in the Cove, either. I don’t think he is…I don’t know. I called. He didn’t answer…but he can’t leave,” she recalled, pressing her hands over her aching eyes. “He can’t leave the Cove during the daytime. And you aren’t onstage. Where’s Freddy? Where’s Bonnie?”

“HEY, KIDS! LOOKS LIKE FREDDY IS ON HIS WAY TO THE MAIN STAGE AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!” Chica chirped, nodding reassuringly, because she was a robot and what in God’s name did Ana think she was going to get out of her?

“Can you go get him? Get Freddy? And Bonnie. I need Bonnie.” Her voice cracked. She wiped at her eyes, but they only stung worse. She’d just wiped blood into them instead of wiping tears away. “Chica, I want to see Bonnie, okay? Right now!”

Chica took her hand, but only led her to the sink. There was a plastic bucket in it, upside-down to dry. Chica removed it, turned on the water, took off her bib and ran it under the tap, then used it to gently wash Ana’s face. “IT’LL BE OKAY,” she said as blood swirled away down the drain. “COME BACK SOON!”

“What? Who? You mean Mason?”

Chica shook her head, making gentle hushing sounds, as if she were soothing a cranky child to sleep. She rinsed her bib, wrung it out, wet it and washed Ana’s face again. So much blood…

“Is he still here? Him and…the other guests? The people? Chica, did you see them?”

“I GUESS IT’S JUST YOU AND ME.”

“But where are the others? Where’s Bonnie? And Freddy and Foxy?” Ana caught Chica’s hand and pushed the bib away. “What happened? I don’t remember anything.”

“SOMEONE NEEDS A NAP!”

“No, I don’t, I need to know what the hell happened here!”

As if in answer, she heard a high metallic groan, followed by a heavy crash and rattle in the storeroom—a familiar sound in its own way. She had heard it before, when pulling the old loading dock door down. She half-turned, half-leapt, her only thought that Mason had come back, or worse, never left, and now he had the drop on her, but it wasn’t Mason. She knew the heavy drag of those footsteps, knew that low wordless grumble. Even if the silhouette that lurched into view was different—amazing the difference one missing hat could make—she knew who it was.

Freddy stopped in the doorway, his ears shivering upright when he saw her. His fan revved. He didn’t look happy to see her. She wasn’t sure she was happy to see him.

His legs from the knees down and arms up to the elbows were darker than the rest of him, the surviving fur matted and black. Her eyes tried first to see blood, because fuck Mike Schmidt and his ghost stories, but after that first terrible second or two, the rest of her perceptions weighed in and informed her it was merely mud. Nasty mud, the thick, putrid kind that slimes up the bottom of still ponds and culverts, except on his feet, where he’d picked up a heavy coat of red desert earth. There had been a hell of a storm raging earlier, but even if Freddy had been gaily splashing through every puddle in the parking lot, he couldn’t have gotten that muddy. Where the hell had he been?

“HI FREDDY,” said Chica finally. “IT SURE IS GREAT TO SEE YOU.” 

“Will ye-e-e not move?” said Foxy waspishly, squeezing in under Freddy’s arm without giving the other animatronic a chance to comply. “I’ve g-got to get back to the C-Cove before—ah. Sh-SHIVER ME TIM—shit.”

His feet were also muddy, Ana saw, although not as bad as Freddy’s, maybe because he had no fur left to get clotted up. She felt a distant sort of worry for his exposed endoskeleton, which had not been built to withstand mudding even when they had a protective carapace, and as long as she was focused on the potential damage this had caused, she did not have to get too good a look at what was staining his hook. Red desert earth, surely. What else would it be?

Like a memory of a picture from a book in a dream, she heard herself say, ‘Are you going to kill him?’ and the cheerful growl of Foxy’s gunpowder-and-rum reply, ‘Oh aye. We’re all going to try, luv, but it’s going to be me.’

And that had happened. That had really happened, because as crazy and impossible as it was, if it hadn’t happened, Mason would still be here. He’d be here and she’d be dead. But he was gone and she was covered in blood. 

…she was covered in someone else’s blood.

And then she heard and saw something that knocked all the horror out of her before it could take on a cohesive form. What she heard were footsteps—heavier even than Freddy’s, slow and lurching—a wet, sucking, swampy stride that came ponderously in from the loading dock door, through the blackness and into the kitchen. What she saw was a figure, inhumanly tall, with dangling arms and long, drooping ears, his entire body slumped as if with exhaustion and coated in black ooze.

“Bonnie?” 

The head turned, ears straining to rise against the tremendous weight of whatever he’d been dipped in.

“Oh, Bonnie,” she said, too stunned to even move yet. “What did they do to you?”

Her first thought, as ridiculous as it was, was that Mason and his boys had tried to tar and feather him, but forgot the feathers. Then the smell hit and she knew. They’d stolen the animatronics, dragged them out to the quarry and dumped them. Bonnie, it seemed, had gone all the way over into the flooded pit. 

“Those sons of bitches!” she spat, outrage flooding all the hollow places inside her. “I’ll kill them!”

Freddy and Foxy exchanged a glance. Freddy moved out of the doorway at last to let Ana through, going over to stand next to Chica. Foxy stayed where he was, watching Ana circle Bonnie.

“How am I going to get this shit off you?” Ana muttered, swiping her hands across his chest and sending a deluge of slime to the kitchen floor. It just kept dripping out of him, forming a lake of dark water around him that spread and spread and spread without stopping. Her shop vac could only suck up the worst of the wet stuff and only on the flatter areas of his body. She had a pressure washer, although his casing was in such poor condition that she was as likely to break him completely open as to clean him off, but what were her options? The sprayer on the kitchen sink would be about as effective against this tarry sludge as a squirt gun.

“I need a handheld steamer,” she said out loud, picking matted grass clotted up with indescribable gunk out of his shoulder joint. “And a power scrubber. And a hair drier.” She offered him her best we’re-both-going-to-be-fine smile. “Get it? A hare drier?”

He rolled his eyes, but when his mouth moved, what came out was a wordless gronk of electronic noise, so low in pitch it barely registered to the ear but so loud, it hurt to hear it. 

Bonnie pulled back, gripping at his throat, and looked at Freddy, who looked back at him in alarm.

“HI BONNIE,” said Chica, her eyes wide. “HI BONNIE! HI BONNIE! HI BONNIE!”

“What was that?” Ana asked, easily the stupidest thing on a long list of stupid things she’d said since waking up on the floor of Pirate’s Cove. And because she really wasn’t that stupid, no matter what she said, instead of waiting for an answer, she grabbed his mouth and pried it open. 

At first, she saw nothing unusual. His teeth. His sculpted, inflexible tongue. His other set of teeth. The dark opening at the back dropping down into his stomach. It took a moment for her to see the slight bulging along the top and sides where it seemed the silicone was coming away from the frame and blistering inward. Hesitantly, she reached in and prodded at the biggest blister with her fingertip. It gave easily, but there was a weight behind it. Almost like a real blister. And it was wet. Wet and cold and slimy. 

Because there was water coming in, streaming almost invisibly in around his teeth and the front end where his muzzle met the silicone sleeve of his mouth. Water, pouring in and down his dark throat. So much water. Where was it coming from?

Ana felt her breath catch, although her mind remained stubbornly, defensively blank. She did not know what she was thinking, but her hands knew what they were doing as she stepped back, closed his mouth, then took careful hold of Bonnie’s muzzle and lifted it up and off his cracked face.

Easily half a gallon of brackish water puked out of him and onto the floor between them.

She could see it everywhere now, beading up around his shoulder and hip joints and trickling down his sides, but almost every seam was sealed with thick, tarry mud that let nothing through. He was full up to the top of his neck with quarry-water.

‘He said he was water-resistant,’ she thought, so clearly it almost seemed to be the voice of another person, the angel on her shoulder, perhaps.

And the devil replied, ‘Water-resistant doesn’t mean water-proof. You can wear a watch in the rain, but that doesn’t always mean you can take it in the pool.’

She stared for the longest second of her life and then she was on her knees and yanking at the hard plates that cased his legs all the way down from his hips until she found one on his left ankle that would open. Water poured out, thick and reeking as rotten blood, washing black blades of grass and slimy leaves out over the kitchen floor.

“You’ll be okay,” said Ana. Her eyes felt as big as Chica’s, but she tried to smile as her numb hands pulled futilely at his other ankle. “You’ll be fine. I spilled a cup of coffee on my keyboard once and it locked up, but as soon as I got it drained and dried, it worked just fine. You’re okay. I’m going to the store. I’m going to get some stuff—fuck me,” she interrupted, looking down at herself.

Bonnie gronked again, and again, looked surprised.

“I’ve got to get cleaned up first,” said Ana, already on her feet and heading for the door, slipping in the sludge with every step. “At home. Shower and soap. Then to the store. I’ll be back. Don’t move. You’re okay. I’ll be right back.”

She ran for her room, throwing things around worse than Mason’s boys ever had as she dressed and found her keys. Then she ran back through the kitchen, hardly seeing the animatronics even though she banged into both Foxy and Freddy as she flew by. She got into her truck and drove away, cutting across fresh tracks in the wet sand beds that had formed over the asphalt without ever seeing them. The sun was shining at the moment, but the rainbow it threw across the sky was a lie; it would be raining again by the time she returned, erasing animatronic footprints, splatters of blood and the tire tracks of one powder blue Crown Victoria as if they had never been.

# * * *

Bonnie didn’t follow Ana, but only because it was so difficult to keep his balance. He had to stand there, one hand still clutching his speaker like his voice was a physical thing that could fall out and roll away if he let it, and watch her run through the kitchen and out again. He tried to say goodbye and only made another of those awful sounds. Error messages had once again formed a solid bar of red light across his vision. He tried to clear it, but the same errors kept popping up again faster than he could close them, and the one that popped up the most was the one that said CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT.

What did that mean anyway? Which system? Or did that mean all of them? And how soon was imminent? Was…Was he dying? He didn’t feel very different, except that his joints were gummed up and it was hard to move. Would he be dead when Ana got back?

‘I’m not dying,’ he told himself, but only in his head, because his voice was gone.

Freddy went to the storeroom to watch Ana leave. His thick fingers scraped and drummed restlessly at the doorjamb until the truck’s engine started up, and then he turned around to survey the kitchen, paying particular attention to the corner where one of the bodies had been. Chica had cleaned up the blood, but it definitely looked like someone had been mopping and kind of sloppily at that. When he came back, he brought the paper towels with him.

“LEAVE. THAT. FOR. AN-N-A,” Freddy ordered, drawing Bonnie’s attention to the fact that Chica was picking matted grass out of his joints. Bubbles swelled around her fingers and burst with wet farting sounds as his cooling system struggled to vent. He was probably overheating.

Mindful of the whole ‘Critical system failure’ thing, Bonnie continued clearing his joints after Chica reluctantly backed off. He thought it helped—at least his internal error message read like a bunch of overlapping text and not an unbroken bar of red light—but the word ‘imminent’ didn’t go away.

“WHAT’S WRONG?” Chica asked, wiping the countertop dry. “AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED? IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT IN HERE?”

“What happened is, Bon g-g-got his ar-r-r—ARR, ME HEARTIES!—arm caught on the fend-d-der and fell—OVERBOARD—fell in,” Foxy told her, then turned on Bonnie with his hook raised, snarling, “And if he’s faking a b-b-busted speaker to gain his lady-love’s sympathies, he’s p-p-picked a piss-poor t-t-time for it!”

Bonnie threw out both his arms, splattering the oven, the walls and Freddy with clots of unspeakable black filth. “Why the fuck would I be faking this?” came out as tortured mechanical noise and he grabbed at his throat again, glaring. Greyish foam began to build up around his shoulder joints, dripping down his chest and plopping onto the floor, thick as cupcake batter.

“Like we ain’t got-t-t enough to do that we got to clean yer mess, too,” Foxy muttered and paced over to the other door to steal a peek in at the dining room.

“FOXY. KNOCK. IT. OFF,” said Freddy. “WE’RE. ALL. UPSET. BUT. THAT. ISN’T. HELPING. CHICA. DID. YOU. GET. EVERYTHING.”

Chica shook her head. “I’LL SEE YOU IN THE ARCADE! MEET ME IN THE READING ROOM FOR STORY-TIME! LOOKS LIKE FREDDY’S HEADING FOR THE STAGE AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!”

“And that’s it?” Foxy asked incredulously. “Woman, it’s b-b-been hours!”

Chica spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness, twitching. “I DID MY BEST! YOU GO AHEAD. I’LL STAY HERE.”

“YOUR. PATHING. PROTOCOLS. RESET,” guessed Freddy and growled in frustration when she nodded. “HOW. DID. I. KNOW. THAT. WAS. GOING. TO. HAPPY.”

“Because it’s the worst possible time,” Bonnie tried to say. His speaker translated that as the lowing of a demonic cow.

“BONNIE. STOP. TALKING. BEFORE. YOU. BREAK. SOME. THING.” Freddy found the mop bucket next to the sink and put it under the faucet to fill. Ana hadn’t worked on the plumbing yet, so the water wasn’t terribly clean, but even dirty water was better than blood. “CHICA. WAKE UP. THAT’S AN ORDER. WE’VE. GOT. A. LOT. TO. DO. THERE’S. STILL.” He clicked through some soundfiles and settled on, “WHEELS. TO. THROW. AWAY.”

“I’ll g-g-get ‘em,” said Foxy, already walking.

Freddy caught him and shoved a bottle of cleanser against his chest. “NO. YOU. AND. CHICA. CLEAN. UP.”

“It’s b-b-bold daylight out there, Fred, and I’m the fastest.”

“YOU. ALSO. GET. UP. AND. DOWN. OFF. THE. FLOOR. EASIEST. HELP. CHICA. CLEAN. IT’S. JUST. ONE. MORE. TRIP. I. THINK,” he added with a growing frown. “I. LOST. COUNT. DID. WE. GET. ALL. THE. PEOPLE.”

“Aye, I think-k-k so. Let’s see, we p-p-put three in the trunk and four in the seat-t-t…or was it four in the trunk…?” Foxy trailed off, counting silently on his fingers (and on the air all around his hook), and finally shook his head. “We’re missing one. No, wait-t-t! I forgot, I put that’n in the b-b-ball-pit.”

_Again?_ Bonnie blurted, or would have if his speaker was working.

“BONNIE. I. SAID. DON’T. TALK.” Freddy gave him a point to emphasize the command, then looked at Foxy. “AGAIN.”

“It were only t-t-temporary. Hell, ye stuffed-d-d one in a locker and I didn’t bitch on at ye about-t-t that, did I?”

“ALL. RIGHT. HERE.” Freddy handed Foxy the bucket and a roll of paper towels. “TAKE. CHICA. AND. TAKE. CARE. OF. IT. REMEMBER. THERE’S. A. MESS. IN. THE. THEATER. AND. THE. ART. ROOM. TOO.” He grumbled to himself. “AND. THAT. ONE. LOCKER. AND. THE. ONE. BENEATH. IT. HE. WAS.” _Click-click-click._ “CHEESY.”

“Aye, on it.”

“AND. MAKE. SURE. YOU. CHECK. ALL. THE. HALLS.”

“Aye.”

“AND. PAY. SPECIAL. ATTENTION. TO. THE. WALLS. THEY. LEAN. ON. THINGS. MORE. OFTEN. WHEN. THEY’RE. HURT.” 

“G-G—GREAT NEPTUNE’S GHOST—man! This ain’t-t-t me first mop-up!”

“IF. YOU. WANT. ME. TO. BELIEVE. YOU. KNOW. WHAT. YOU’RE. DOING. THEN. STOP. THROWING. THEM. IN. THE. BALL. PIT.” Freddy’s gaze shifted to Chica. “KEEP. HIM. ON. TRACK. I’LL. GET. THE. WHEELS. AND. BE. BACK. TO. HELP. AS. SOON. AS. I. CAN.” 

“OKAY, FREDDY.” Chica took the bucket from Foxy and waddled off.

Freddy glanced at the storeroom door, clearly anxious to get the last of the bikes dumped, then at Bonnie. “I. DON’T. KNOW. HOW. LONG. AN-N-A. WILL. BE. GONE. IF. SHE. COMES. BACK. BEFORE. WE’RE. DONE. KEEP. HER. BUSY. HERE.” 

Bonnie looked down at himself—plenty of work there—and nodded dispiritedly. 

Freddy started to move away, but stopped and looked back. “YOU’LL. BE. OKAY,” he told him. “YOU. JUST. NEED. TO. BE. CLEANED. UP. AND. DRIED. OUT.”

Bonnie nodded again, but not right away and not with the same surety. 

“AN-N-A. WILL. TAKE. CARE. OF. YOU,” Freddy declared and headed out. 

Sure, she would. At least, she’d try, but Bonnie was beginning to think something in there was broken. Not loose, not cracked, not slipping its screw. Broken. Without new parts, Bonnie was afraid that, well, that a critical systems failure was imminent. Where was Ana supposed to get parts? It wasn’t like she could just make what she needed. She was a lot of things, a lot of good things…but she was not a fabricator.

Chica had already left, but Foxy was still standing there, looking at him. “It is just yer speaker, ain’t-t-t it?” he asked suddenly.

‘How the hell should I know?’ Bonnie thought. His shrug brought out another of those farty bubbles, this time with a little puff of dark smoke.

Foxy came over, using his hook to dig out the worst of the clots, opening his joints so that they could at least vent his cooling system. More of that greasy-looking smoke came out. Hopefully, that was just garbage-water cooking off as his battery case dried. More importantly, the red bar of alert text thinned out some more, scaling down from a critical systems failure to an all-systems warning and then to a cooling system error and finally to the usual malfunction codes that he could minimize, but never completely clear. So he was fine…which was to say he wasn’t fine, but at least he wasn’t dying.

Hopefully.

“I knew ye d-d-didn’t do it on purpose, mate,” Foxy said, scraping around the base of his ears now. “I weren’t t-tr-truly suggesting otherwise, just full o’ nerves and spitting nettles. Guilty-ty-ty conscience, eh?”

Bonnie opened his mouth, remembered his speaker, and had to settle for squinting extra suspiciously. Guilty about what?

Foxy saw, although he didn’t look Bonnie in the eye. One might even say he was avoiding Bonnie’s direct gaze. “Had to leave her. Didn’t-t-t want to. Hope ye believe that.”

Oh. Well…yeah. When it came right down to it, without Foxy to do the running, this whole mess would have been a lot worse. Bonnie let his resentment run out like the water from the quarry and tried to nod like he meant it.

“This?” said Foxy, hooking a snotty clump of weeds and mud out of Bonnie’s mouth and flicking it with a splat into the sink. “Bad-d-d luck, is all. Could have happened to any one of us.”

Bad luck, right. Bonnie rubbed a hand down his chest, pushing a thick fall of foul water off his casing and onto the floor. The fur he exposed was slick and shiny, as if he’d slathered it in grease, and stained grey, maybe permanently. And that stuff, those chunky plops of quarry-shit, that was inside him, too. God only knew what he had to smell like. 

“There ye are,” said Foxy, popping his arm- and leg-casings open one at a time. “Air ye out-t-t, that’ll help. Soon as Ana’s back, she’ll swab ye d-d-d—DOWN TO THE DEPTHS—down and put ye right in no t-t-time. Ye know sh-sh—SHIVER ME—she will.” 

Bonnie nodded again, but he could feel his ears straining to push forward in mounting distrust. In all fairness, Foxy probably wasn’t as much of an asshole as Bonnie liked to think he was, but he sure wasn’t in the habit of showering other people in sympathy and encouragement either. What the hell was this really about?

Still, Foxy didn’t look him in the eye, but he looked him in the ears, and Bonnie’s big bunny ears said enough. “Ease yerself,” he said, not without a toothy smile. “Ain’t burdened me c-c-conscience so much as all that. I was a right-t-t proper gentleman, I was. And she hardly even knew I was there. I was…I was the d-dr-dream she was dreaming in yer arms, that’s all. And when she c-c-comes flying back through that door, I can be beside ye or in me cabin or on the bloody-dy-dy moon for all she’ll take notice. I asks ye, is that fair?” 

Now he looked at Bonnie. He was smiling, but his ears were flat. Ears couldn’t lie. “I killed-d-d five men tonight,” Foxy said. “A personal b-b-best and no easy feat, let me t-t-t—TELL TALES OF THE SEA—tell ye, but if I went to her with blood on me blade and offered up the bloke’s head by the hair, she c-c-couldn’t shoulder me aside fast enough to get to ye, even as ye ar-r—ARR! It ain’t so much that I’m…”

Bonnie waited, ears cocked forward, dripping black sludge all over the floor to swirl away down the open drain under the sink.

Foxy left that thought unfinished and said instead, “Ye think-k-k that’s funny, don’t ye?”

Bonnie shrugged and nodded. He did think it was funny, although maybe not for the same reasons Foxy did. For him, it wasn’t so much about finally getting to see Foxy experience first-hand how it felt to see someone right run past you to heap undeserved attention on a clearly inferior act—and even if Bonnie had killed four guys in the onslaught, a personal best of his own, he could admit he probably hadn’t done it with Foxy’s finesse and he hadn’t been the one to take out Mason and actually save Ana when saving her had been necessary, so…credit where it’s due and all that, Foxy was once again the star attraction. But this little nugget of dark humor in Bonnie’s mechanical heart wasn’t even about that. It had more to do with the whole imminent systems failure thing, and how even if the alert had switched off, he must actually still be dying, because that was the only reason Foxy would ever almost say the words _I’m jealous_ to him and mean it. 

‘I guess now I can die happy,’ Bonnie thought sourly, but when he tried to say it, all that came out through his speaker was a blat of noise, terminating in a disturbing pop and sudden silence.

“I gots to g-g-get on with the mopping,” Foxy said, casting a troubled sort of glance at Bonnie’s neck, although he did not comment on his voice. “Later, mate.” 

Bonnie waved at Foxy’s back and settled himself against the counter to wait for Ana, clearing his error log whenever the alerts blotted out too much of his vision, but trying not to think about it too much. The critical failure warning hadn’t reappeared, so maybe he’d just been overheating and the situation would resolve with some extra venting now followed by a good cleaning. Or, you know, he’d burned something out and was just dying quietly. Either way, he couldn’t do much about it.

He just hoped…if this really was it…that it happened before she came back. He wanted to see her again, especially if it was the last time, but…not if it meant her watching him die. For that…For that, he really ought to be alone.


	38. Chapter 38

# CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

There was no Sunday for Ana. She seemed to have fallen asleep (just when and how, she could not remember either, but she’d taken a lot of hits to the head and this uncharacteristic fragmenting of her memory did not alarm her) and woken up several degrees removed from the world. There was time—she could feel it pouring out all around her, irretrievable—but no clocks and certainly no calendars. 

What happened outside of Freddy’s was no more than a blur of scenery and sound. She went home. She showered. She dressed again (in clothes borrowed from Aunt Easter’s closet, because she had forgotten to bring any). In a moment of almost-clear thought, she went to David’s bedroom and got the hat the Freddy from Circle Drive had once given David and took it with her when she left. She drove to the hardware store and could not understand why it was closed when the sun was still out, she could only drive on to the Lowes in Hurricane. Once there, the sight of other people brought on another moment of almost-clarity; she hurriedly slapped on a mask of concealer from the stash of cosmetics still in the truck, left over from the last time Mason’s boys had beat on her, before going inside where her appearance might have consequences. She bought what she needed, drove ten million miles through nothing and somehow arrived again at Freddy’s, where Freddy himself was waiting for her on the loading dock, holding the broken door over his head so she could come in.

The bags from Lowes were bulky. She had not been trying to hide David’s hat among them, but Freddy seemed not to see it until she juggled it out and gave it to him. His brooding expression briefly showed surprise and then he tried to give it back. 

“It’s fine. You can keep it,” she said, picking her way across the cluttered storeroom to the kitchen.

“IT. WON’T. FIT,” he told her, turning it over. “IT. NEEDS. A…” 

And then he stopped, staring again, this time at the Velcro patches fixed to the underside of the hat’s brim. Slowly, he put it on, then took it off, his ears twitching at the sound of Velcro that had been perfectly aligned, front and back, pulling loose. He looked at her, the light from his eyes pushing her shadow out ahead of her onto Bonnie in the other room, and after Ana saw him, Freddy and his hat ceased to matter. There was only Bonnie.

And God, he looked awful.

“Hi,” she said, trying to smile.

His muzzle moved, but the only sound was a hush of dead air from his speaker.

She nodded like she’d heard him and started the water running in the sink while she opened boxes. With her power scrubber in one hand and a bottle of industrial cleanser in the other, she turned to him and winked. “It’s time for your sponge-bath, Mr. The Bunny.”

His ears went up. He laughed—just a wet squish and sputtering—and came to her.

And that was how Sunday passed, although she never once thought of it in concrete terms even as she spent its hours scrubbing Bonnie down, from the outside in and the inside out. However, as the day came to a close, she did ultimately become aware of the impending arrival of Monday and all the workday realities that came with it, and so she had to stop and reassess the situation.

Objectively speaking, she knew it could be worse. Despite Mason’s best efforts, Bonnie had not been lost in the quarry or even that badly damaged. He could walk, he seemed to have all his primary senses, he obeyed her commands and, as much as she could tell, he had his full mental faculties. All he was missing was his voice.

She couldn’t give it back to him. She kept telling him everything was going to be all right, but she knew better. He wasn’t a keyboard. Somehow, she’d known, whatever this was, it was permanent, and yet she still had to try. 

She cleaned him, because that was the first step in any job where replacing parts was not an option. His fibracene fur dissolved with the cleanser where it hadn’t already melted under the steamer or been pulled out by the scrubber. His plastic skin had been textured to allow a better bonding surface for flocking, and was rough without it, unpleasant to the touch. She saw the damage she was doing and just kept scrubbing, watching with helpless sorrow as the huggable body she had only just restored to him now seemed to rot apart in her very hands and drop away. 

And still she kept cleaning, because what else could she do? When the drain in the kitchen inevitably clogged, she simply moved to the employee’s breakroom and stood him over the drain where her shower used to be. If that one backed up on her, she’d take him to one of the bathrooms, but she didn’t think it would. She’d washed the last of the quarry off him hours ago. Washed, yes, and dried, and then taken him apart at the knees and elbows, half in the hope that maybe it was a system-wide electrical problem caused by moisture in his hollow bones and half in fear of the very same thing. She was afraid to squirt chemicals into his endoskeleton, afraid to blow hot air or steam up there, afraid to do nothing and just let them drain. 

At times, she considered taking him apart—not just at the joints, but all the way—to see if moisture had gotten into his cooling system, his CPU, his battery. The idea made her feel slightly sick to her stomach, as if it were acknowledging this was the last straw she had left to grab at, and she already knew it wouldn’t work anyway. The problem was in his speakerbox. All she could accomplish by disassembling his cooling system and battery case would be to break their watertight seals, maybe let air in, and generally finish the job Mason had started and destroy him. 

So she cleaned him, because it was the only thing she could do, but no matter how often or how thoroughly she did it, his voice did not come back. And it was time to face facts: his voice might never come back. Did that make him less Bonnie? The kids-cartoon answer was no, but the real world was not drawn by Disney; without his voice, he was trapped within his own mind, a witness to the world but no longer fully a part of it. Maybe. Maybe it didn’t even matter to him. It was hard to know for sure. He looked at her as she worked on him, nodded when she spoke, touched her when she let her anxiety show, but if he had fears of his own, he kept them hidden.

In fact, none of the animatronics said anything to her, either about Bonnie or about Mason. Hell, Foxy and Chica were both back on stage by the time Ana returned to the restaurant and Bonnie occasionally got glitchy and tried to rejoin the act. Freddy at least seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation; he checked on the broken doors often, but otherwise stayed close enough that he could order Bonnie back into position whenever he got the urge to do the Hokey Pokey. Even he didn’t directly address the reason why Bonnie was spending the day getting repeatedly steam-cleaned, however. And for a bear who spent most of his time on the lookout for trespassers, he said nothing at all about the morning’s invasion.

At last, as much as to distract herself from the inevitability of admitting there was nothing more she could do for Bonnie, Ana said, “Mason was here this morning.”

Bonnie’s head was off at the moment while Ana waved the air-dryer over his speaker for the umpteenth time, but his eyes shifted to Freddy.

“I DON’T KNOW,” Freddy said.

“It wasn’t a question, bear. I know he was here. Don’t you even try to gaslight me and say he wasn’t.”

“I’M. NOT. SOME. ONE. WAS. HERE. HE. DIDN’T. INTRODUCE. HIMSELF.”

“Someone? Just the one?”

“THERE. WERE. A. FEW. OTHERS,” Freddy said distractedly. The camera over the storeroom door had just come on again, shining like a spotlight directly on Ana. The first few times this had happened had been unnerving, but the fear that the camera’s feed might be transmitting had waned over the course of the day and now Ana’s only reaction to it was to lean to one side so it couldn’t throw her shadow over her hands.

“What happened to them?”

“WHAT. DOES. THAT. MEAN.”

“It means, what did you do?” Ana asked boldly, risking a glance that showed her only Freddy being more interested in the camera than in her. “Because I sure as hell didn’t chase them off and there’s no way he’d have left without killing me if he had a choice. And that means—”

Just what that meant trembled on her lips and died unspoken.

“—that means you didn’t give him one,” she said, more vaguely.

Freddy grunted, infuriatingly unmoved. “AND. YOU. SAID. I. WASN’T. THAT. SCARY.”

“What did you do? Tell me what you did.”

Now Freddy looked at her, just from the corner of his plastic eye. Then he looked at Bonnie, who was beginning the now-familiar shivers that would probably lead to him getting up and heading for the stage in a few minutes. Last of all, he looked at the camera and he kept on looking, motionless, not even blinking, until the camera’s light went dark.

“THEY. GOT. IN,” he said then, turning his gaze back on Bonnie. “I. COULDN’T. KEEP. THEM. OUT. SO. THEY. GOT. IN.”

Bonnie twitched.

“THEY. FOUND. YOU. AND. THEN. I. FOUND. THEM.” Freddy glanced at her again. “THEY. THOUGHT. I. WAS. SCARY.”

“You are not going to tell me they all ran away like a bunch of campers in a Scooby Doo cartoon. I’m dumb, bear, but I’m not that dumb.”

“KIDS. RUN. WHEN. YOU. SCARE. THEM.” Freddy rolled one shoulder in a bearish shrug. “THESE. WERE. NOT. KIDS. THEY. WERE. ALREADY. FIRED. UP. AND. THEY. WERE. ALREADY. HI! DO. I. HAVE. TO. TELL. YOU. WHAT. PEOPLE. LIKE. THAT. DO. WHEN. THEY. GET. SCARED.”

They hit, of course. They hurt whatever can bleed and break whatever can’t. A more sympathetic person might say they were externalizing their own pain, that with therapy, rehab and God’s love, even Mason could be redeemed. Ana had no such tender feeling. Mason had probably forgotten Bonnie the moment he’d gone into the quarry, but not Ana. Until she was reading his obituary in the Mammon Minute, she would always be his unfinished business.

“So what happened?” she asked. “He wasn’t done here, clearly. There’s no way he’d just leave.”

“I DON’T KNOW.” After a moment, Freddy added, “HE. HAD. A. PHONE. CALL.”

“A phone call? Oh, no, bear. Not a fucking chance. I don’t care if it was the ghost of Ed McMahon himself calling to tell him he was standing on Mason’s front porch with a bunch of balloons and a giant novelty check, no phone call was more important than finishing what he started here. He didn’t just leave you guys behind, he left me!”

Freddy’s only answer was a grunt.

“Well, who was it?”

“I DON’T KNOW.”

“You don’t seem too concerned about them coming back,” said Ana without closely examining what she thought this meant.

“ALL. I. CARE. ABOUT. IS. THAT. THEY’RE. GONE. NOW.”

“They’ll be back.”

“I. DON’T. THINK. SO.”

“Then you’re fooling yourself, bear. The way I see it, there’s only two possibilities here. Either Mason Kellar thinks he left me here dead or he thinks he left me here not-dead. He’s dumb, but not dumb enough to just leave a body lying on the floor of Pirate Cove.”

“WHY. NOT.” Freddy spread his arms, taking in the fullness of the neglect. “WHO. WOULD. EVER. FIND. YOU.”

“You might have a point,” she said after a moment. “But if he convinces himself I’m still alive, then what?”

“THEN. WHAT,” Freddy repeated, narrowing his eyes at her. “ARE. YOU. GOING. TO. TELL. THE. POLICE.”

“Jesus! Of course not!”

“THEN. WHY. SHOULDN’T. THEY. LEAVE. YOU. IF. THEY. KNOW. EVEN. YOU. WILL. KEEP. THEIR. SECRETS. FOR. THEM.”

She had no answer for that, but she could feel herself blushing.

Freddy saw it. His ears lowered and the angry slant went out of his eyes. “I’M. NOT. MAD. AT. YOU,” he said, reaching but not quite touching her. “I’M. JUST. IN. A. BAD. MOO. ASK. BONNIE. I’M. ALWAYS. LIKE. THIS. AT. T-T—TIME TO PLAY—TIMES. LIKE. THESE.”

Bonnie nodded, muzzle moving without sounds. He had no lips to read, but she imagined she could make out his earnest yeah-he’s-an-asshole anyway.

Sighing, Ana turned back to Freddy. “I hate to grind on about this, but if Mason comes back—”

“IF. HE. DOES. THEN. I’LL. HANDLE. IT.” 

“Freddy, don’t make me say it.”

“SAY. WHAT.”

Ana closed her eyes, shook her head, then looked at him and said, “Did you kill him?”

Bonnie jerked hard, almost hitting her in the stomach with the spastic swing of one arm, but Freddy didn’t flinch.

“NO,” he said.

“Then you can’t handle it,” said Ana. “Because that’s what it’s going to take. And not just Mason, but all of them. There’s no making peace with these guys now. Not even Rider could smooth things over. Someone’s got to…”

To die, she’d meant to say, but the last word slipped off into the nothing and was forgotten. Rider. She really must have been high last night, although she still could not remember taking anything, because a hangover was the only thing that could possibly explain why it had taken her this long to think of Rider. Rider, who had solved so many of her problems in the past.

It wasn’t Mason she thought of now. He was a problem, all right, and Rider could easily solve him if she was dumb enough to ask, but when he was done, he’d drag her back to California with him and her fun days at Freddy’s would be over. She wasn’t ready. She’d rather stay and take her chances with Mason and all his little meth-head friends than leave now. But maybe there was something else Rider could do for her.

Ana started to speak, caught Bonnie’s eye, and clumsily closed her mouth again. She smiled, patted his shoulder, and put his head back on. “I’m…going to step outside for a bit,” she told him. “Don’t move, my man. I’ll be right back.”

Bonnie nodded, catching at his head when it slipped to one side, unsecured.

Ana left him under Freddy’s care and went to look for her phone. She anticipated a lengthy search—she hadn’t even started picking her shit up and figuring out what had been stolen—but to her mild surprise and profound relief, she found it almost immediately. It was still in her day-pack, which was itself still in the dining room, although it was on the floor and opened, as if someone had started to rummage through it before either throwing the whole thing out into the middle of the room or starting to run off with it and then dropping it. However, the phone’s battery was too low to even turn on and tell her to plug it in and by the time she got it on its charger in the party room, Freddy had tracked her down.

Before he could say anything, Ana said, “I can’t fix him, you know. And I’m kind of afraid to keep trying.”

Freddy continued to stand in the doorway for a few seconds, utterly unresponsive, before stepping all the way inside in spite of the _no bears allowed_ clause posted on her sign and closing the door behind him. “ARE. YOU. SURE.”

“I’m sure of several things, actually. I’m sure I’m not an expert in animatronic engineering or repairs. I’m sure even I break stuff when I don’t know what I’m doing. And I’m sure it will fucking destroy me if I break Bonnie because I’m too stubborn to admit that…that I can’t fix him.”

Freddy nodded, looking away, first aimlessly around the room, then up when the security camera on the wall came on. 

“But there are animatronic experts out there,” Ana said, standing up and moving closer in an effort to recapture Freddy’s attention. It worked, but she caught the camera’s ‘eye’ as well. It was motion-activated, as she had some dim memory of being told, and tracked her with a closeness that mimicked human consciousness, even after she stopped walking. Another time, this might have been disconcerting; right now, with Bonnie’s life or at least, his quality of life at stake, it was merely a distraction. “If I can talk to one of them—”

Freddy focused in on her sharply, the lenses of his eyes and the lens of the camera on the wall whining, all three, in unison. “WHO?”

“I don’t know who, but…but look, I need help or Bonnie will never talk again. What am I supposed to do, teach him sign language? His hands barely work! What then? Morse code? Semaphore? Interpretative dance? And what if…what if it doesn’t stop at just his voice? What if his eyes go next? Or his battery? And that’s a very real possibility, you know. He was not designed to withstand a dunking in the toxic soup that quarry has become! Who knows what the long-term repercussions of that are going to be?”

Freddy frowned, reaching for his hat only to frown deeper when he actually found it. He took it off, rubbed his thumb once across one of the Velcro tabs, and looked at her. “I’M. OPEN. TO. SUGGESTIONS. WHAT. DO. YOU. WANT. TO. DO.”

“I need to talk to someone who knows about this stuff. You understand that, right? You’d allow it? I’m not talking about bringing someone here or taking Bonnie away, just talking on the phone. Maybe taking some pictures.”

“OF. BONNIE.”

“Of his insides, not his face. And not yours. I realize I probably shouldn’t even care about this right now, but I still don’t want anybody to know that I’m here. I don’t want anybody to know that you’re here, either. I just want to talk to someone who can fix Bonnie’s speaker.”

Freddy grunted, rubbing one hand slowly across his own speaker. “WHO?” he asked again at last.

“I don’t know.” With an electronic device’s perfect sense of timing, Ana’s phone lit, having been on the charger long enough to at least power up. She pointed. “But I’m going to start by calling Rider. He’ll find a guy for me. He can find anything.”

Freddy thought it over, although he did not seem to give it his full consideration until after the security camera timed out and moved on to another room. “ALL. RIGHT,” he said at last. “BUT. THERE. ARE. RULES. YOU. DON’T. MENTION. ME. YOU. DON’T. MENTION. ANY. OF. US.”

“I won’t.”

“IF. YOU. TAKE. PICTURES. DON’T. SHOW. BONNIE’S. FACE. OR. MINE. AND. THAT. INCLUDES. POSTERS. IN. FACT. TRY. NOT. TO. SHOW. TOO. MUCH. OF. THE. ROOM. AT. ALL.”

“Hey, I’m completely okay with that. I am trespassing, remember?”

“WE. PROBABLY. AREN’T. SUPPOSED. TO. BE. HERE. E. THERE,” Freddy countered. “YOU. MIGHT. GO. TO. JAIL. IF. YOU. ARE. CAUGHT. BUT. WE. WILL. GO. TO. THE. JUNK. YARD. SO. PLEASE. BE. CAREFUL. I. TRUST. YOU. BUT. BE. CAREFUL.” 

“I will,” Ana promised, picking up her phone.

“It’s about goddamn time,” was Rider’s greeting when he picked up. A feminine voice off to one side muttered an indignant query and he said, “No one, just a friend of mine.” Another query, more alert. “Yeah, a girl. So?” A third query, claws out in a not-quite-joking tone. “Hell, yeah, she’s hot,” snapped Rider and Ana rolled her eyes. “I’d tap that in an instant. She is presently a thousand miles away and I would be on the road with a bottle of champagne and a bucket of chicken if she asked me for a booty call, that’s how hot she is. I would paint her nails, eat her pussy and do her goddamn taxes. Now roll that skinny ass out of here and go do something with yourself. I’m on the phone. You all right?” he asked as the female voice receded in a stream of four-letter words.

“I’m fine,” she replied automatically. “Only I really need you right now.”

“I’m on my way,” he replied, his words broken over some rustling and jingling sounds that might actually be him grabbing keys and heading out the door. “What happened?”

“I don’t need you _here_ ,” said Ana, baffled that this would be his go-to reaction. “I just need you to get me a guy.”

The silence that followed was so long and so deep that she pulled the phone away from her ear to check and see if she’d been disconnected. “You all right?” Rider asked, with what was for him a significant level of both confusion and caution.

Ana raked a hand through her hair. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You’re fine.”

“Yeah.”

“Totally fine.”

“I know I haven’t talked to you in a while and I know there’s probably things you…” Mason’s face as she’d last seen it drifted through her, cold, like a ghost. “…you want to know,” she finished uncomfortably, “but right now, it’s just going to have to be enough for you that I’m fine. I need you, Rider, and mostly what I need is for you to not to ask me any questions. Please. I need a guy. Right now. It’s an emergency.”

Another silence, followed by the creak of leather as Rider apparently sat himself back down. “You in trouble? More importantly,” he went on without a hitch, “will trouble be coming to see me?”

“What? No, nothing like that. It’s just…” Ana trailed off, looking helplessly at Freddy, who went on staring watchfully back at her. “Look, it’s weird and to be honest, I don’t want to get into it on the phone, but I’m fine, I swear. I just need a guy and I have no idea where to even look for one. I kind of tried to find one on my own back when it wasn’t so serious and I got nowhere, and now I need one, like tonight, and I can’t fuck around anymore.” 

“It may not be trouble,” Rider said at last, still sounding dangerously unconcerned, “but it sounds serious, whatever it is. Hang on. Bitch, you walk your ass out of this room right now or I will throw it all the way out in the yard. I am on the fucking phone. All right, darlin’. What do you need?”

“You know what an animatronic is?”

“Isn’t that where you strangle yourself while you’re jacking off? The hell kind of trouble are you in?”

“No, that’s…that’s something else. An animatronic is…You ever been to Disneyland?”

“Yeah, sure. So?”

“So, like, you know those talking dolls they have on practically all the rides?”

“Yeah?” A pause. “Okay, seriously now, what the fuck?”

“What I need from you is someone who can fix those things. Not just tinker with them, not lube and tune them, but really fix them. Tonight.”

“This is your emergency?” Rider asked, his tone curving back from feigned calm to a royal piss-off. “I don’t hear from you for over a week and now it’s a matter of life or death that you get a fucking robot repairman at eight o’clock on a Sunday night?”

“Yes. Please.”

Silence, but not a long one.

“One of these days, you are going to have to tell me this story,” Rider said. “But I’m going to put that aside right now. You got any other requirements I need to know?” 

“I’ll take anyone as long as they legit know their shit, speak English and are extremely flexible on the subject of payment.”

“Check. I’ll be in touch.”

Rider hung up. 

Ana set the phone down to finish charging and looked over at Freddy. “Well, that’s going to bounce back on me in a big way, but at least the ball’s rolling and Rider always comes through.”

The security camera came on again.

Freddy gave it an odd, scowling sort of stare. “FUNNY. CHOICE. OF. WORDS. DO. YOU. KNOW. WHAT. IT. MEANS.”

“What, ‘The ball is rolling’? I guess I always thought it was a pinball thing. Like, the ball’s rolling so let the game begin?”

“ANOTHER. FUNNY. CHOICE. OF. WORDS.” Freddy’s gaze lingered on the camera another second or two before he turned his back on it entirely. “BUT. NO. IT’S. MORE. LIKE. A. SNOW. BALL. ROLLING. DOWN. HILL. ONCE. IT. STARTS. NO. ONE. CAN. STOP. IT. AND. YOU’RE. RIGHT. THE. BALL. IS. ROLLING. NOW.”

“Why are you making it sound so ominous? This is a good thing, remember?”

“IT. IS. YES.” Freddy shook his head, glanced one more time at the camera as it shut itself off, and opened the door for her. “I’M SORRY. IT’S. BEEN. A. BAD. DAY.”

“For you and me both, bear,” Ana agreed, heading back to the breakroom and another round of futility with the power scrubbers. “But the worst is over, at least until Mason decides to come back.”

“HE. WON’T.”

“Yeah, well, I wish I had your optimistic outlook on life, but the way I see it, either he thinks I’m dead and he’ll come back to loot my extremely lootable possessions, or he’ll start to worry that I’m not and he’ll come back to finish the job. And then what? We can’t even close the doors, much less lock them. If he shows up, we are straight-fucked.”

“HE. WON’T.”

“And you know this because?”

Freddy grunted to himself, walking beside her, and said, “IT. WAS. A. SERIOUS. SOUNDING. PHONE. CALL. THEY. WERE. UPSET. YELLING. AND. THEY. ALL. LEFT. IN. A. HURRY.”

“Huh. I wonder if it was Rider. He sounded weird on the phone. Shit. This always happens when I lie to him. He always instantly finds out. Oh for…Freddy, he did it again,” Ana sighed. She had just pushed the dining room door open to find the last set of the day had started in her absence and Bonnie was onstage with Chica, his metal skull grinning and ear-pins waggling as he played air-guitar. “Say the magic words for me?”

“PLEASE AND THANK YOU!” Freddy boomed obediently, then shook his head hard and growled, “BONNIE. WAKE. UP. AND. GO. WITH. AN-N-A. THAT’S AN ORDER.”

“Can you do something else for me? For my peace of mind, can you please keep an eye on the road? And if you see anyone at all, just come and tell me.”

Freddy nodded, but the angle of his eyelids said he was humoring her and that bothered her.

“Please take this seriously,” Ana said, going to offer Bonnie a hand as he came down off the stage. “I know you don’t think I have anything to worry about, but you don’t know Mason.”

“I. MAY. NOT. KNOW. THE. MAN. BUT. I. KNOW. HOW. HE. LOOKED. WHEN. HE. LEFT,” said Freddy, already walking away. “AND. HE. LOOKED. LIKE. HE. MESSED. WITH. THE. WRONG. PERSON.”


	39. Chapter 39

# CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Two hours later, the phone rang. The air-dryer was a roar in her ears; she never heard it, but she felt its vibrations against her chest where it rested, tucked into her bra. She brought it out, checked the screen, and saw an unknown number identifying itself as Mechatech. 

“I think this is the guy,” she said, looking around. Foxy was spending the night in Pirate Cove as usual, but Chica had joined her once the restaurant had ‘closed,’ and although Freddy had been good about watching the road for the most part, he was here now, too. “If you two want to stay, you have to be quiet, understand? Not a word.”

“NOT A PEEP,” Chica promised with a beak-zipping motion.

Bonnie tapped his speaker, as if to remind her being quiet was kind of the problem at the moment.

“Smart ass,” she told him, smiling, and put the phone on speaker so they could all hear. “Stark here. You the guy?” 

“I’m the guy,” came the reply. The voice conjured an immediate mental image of a double-wide trailer with holes burnt in the carpeting, a sagging sofa, six gaming consoles hooked to a 60 inch TV, and a pyramid of beer cans on which balanced a bong in the shape of either an alien’s head or a lady’s ass. Not, in other words, a voice to inspire confidence.

Ana braced herself and said, “You know what I want?”

“An animatronics engineer. I believe the exact words were, someone who, quote, legit knows his shit, end quote, and I like that, by the way. I’m gonna put it on my business card. ‘MechaTech, Animatronics and Robotics Engineering and Manufacturing Services. We legit know our shit.’”

“You mind if I ask your credentials?”

“Not at all,” said the voice, sounding like it came with a smile. “Name’s Lawrence Shinuyzaki. Friends call me Yoshi, which is not as racist as it sounds. I used to kick ass at Super Mario Brothers. If my mom had bought me a Sega that year instead of a Super Nintendo, I’d probably be called Sonic.”

“Apart from your mad gaming skills—?” 

“Graduated summa cum laude in a class of eighty at Caltech with a masters in robotics engineering and a bachelors in applied mechanics. Twenty-six years experience with robotics, including eight as an imagineer at Disneyland. Five awards in the field of robotics engineering, including the King-Sun First medal in 1988 for my work on the Talkie Tumi, forerunner of the cleverbot, and the Phoenix Testbed award in 1991 for my design of the guidance system on an automated car that could safely drive itself through the crowd at Toontown. Disney and I parted ways a few years later when I got a little too happy in the happiest place on Earth and now I freelance, designing effects and props for the many, many up and coming movie studios here in Nevada, and also do occasional work with the big shows that come through the Strip. Any other questions?”

“I have to confess, I’m a little shocked by how professional that sounds. How the hell do you know Rider?”

“Used to do a little business with him back when I was in the area and let me tell you, the fact that he apparently can still put his thumb on me at a moment’s notice seventeen years later is not at all alarming and won’t be keeping me up at night for years to come. How do you know him?”

Ana shrugged, much more aware of the animatronics watching her than she really thought she should have been. “I flip houses for him.”

“Interesting. So obviously, you’ve got an animatronic in need of repairs. What exactly is the malfunction?”

“Say something,” said Ana, holding the phone up to Bonnie’s speaker.

Bonnie obediently uttered some dead air with some nearly inaudible metallic noise running through it.

“Either you got a bad case of Rice Krispies in your sound system or you got your ‘bot wet,” Yoshi said comfortably and without hesitation. “Because that particular snap, crackle and pop means a short in the speaker and just to prove how freaking amazing I am at my job, I can also tell you’re using a non-HAVI pack system, which probably narrows it down even further to a short in the coil or the DEB filter, depending on what you’ve got there.”

Ana could judge how good a guess that was by Bonnie’s ear-pins coming forward, Chica’s eyebrows raising and Freddy’s thoughtful grunt. The feeling that this just might work out was as crushing in its own way as the fear that it might not. 

“Yeah,” she said, as soon as she could say anything at all. “Yeah, he got wet. I’ve been trying to dry him all day, but—”

“Damage is done, unfortunately, but the good news is, it’s a quick fix under optimum conditions and Rider says you’re pretty good with tools, so I can probably talk you through it. However, I can only give you about an hour before my life catches up with me. If you need more time than that, we’re going to have to pick this up tomorrow. So. First things first, what are we dealing with here?”

She very nearly said, ‘A bunny,’ like that was any kind of useful, which was her first clue that she might not be handling all this as well as she thought she was. She took a calming breath and said, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what brand animatronic is it?”

Ana looked at Bonnie, who looked back at her with an oddly alarmed expression, although that was probably her projecting, since he didn’t have his head on at the moment and therefore, couldn’t emote much at all. “I don’t know,” she hedged.

“Where’d you get it?”

Freddy put his hand on her shoulder in a hard, heavy grip and shook his head. She nodded distractedly; she didn’t need the warning.

“Would you believe a storage unit auction?” she asked.

“I guess so.”

“Then that’s my story.”

“Look,” said Yoshi with a small laugh. “I honestly don’t care if you crashed in through the Epcot Center wall and hijacked the talking Lincoln out of there with a helicopter. I just need to know what brand they are. There’s eight major animatronics manufacturing firms in business today and they all use proprietary parts and software. Now, I’m familiar with all of them, but until I know which one you’ve got, I won’t know how to tell you to fix it.”

Ana scowled. “Okay. But…I honestly don’t know. If I knew anything about animatronics, I’d be fixing him myself.” 

“Please, don’t. For the love of all things holy, do not attempt to fix him yourself. There should be a logo or a make and model code somewhere on the frame,” he assured her. “Usually on the back of the neck. Can you get the head off?”

“Yeah, but there’s no logo.” Ana leaned in to have another look anyway, turning the phone to shine its light around the exposed mechanics. “There’s nothing.”

“Okay, look, can you Skype on your phone?”

“Of course. What, am I calling you on a tin can tied to a string?”

“Then I’m going to hang up now and Skype you back. Okay? I can probably do this at a distance, but I kind of got to see what you’re doing.”

“Yeah,” said Ana, still frowning. “Yeah, do that. I’m here.”

He ended the call. Ana texted him her contact information, then looked at Freddy. “Any chance at all I could get you to step outside while I deal with this?” she asked.

“HA,” he said and folded his arms, assuming a stance that framed the punchline for that old joke, where does a 500-pound bear sit at the movies? Anywhere he goddamn well wants.

“Thought not. Okay, come here,” she said, waving him over and handing him the phone. “Hold this for me. I’m going to need both hands and more importantly, I don’t want to risk you getting in the shot. It’s bad enough that Bonnie’s got to be here—”

Bonnie uttered another crackle, as if to point out this was not what he wanted to be doing today either.

“—but this guy is not getting eyes on anyone else,” Ana finished, helping Freddy’s massive hands close on the phone and aiming it at Bonnie. “I don’t know how infamous Fazbear’s is outside of Mammon, but if anyone would know the ghost stories, it’d be a dude with twenty-whatever years in animatronics. Chica, you…you just go. Go to the kitchen. Kitchen. Go. Chica…for fuck’s sake. Any other day, I couldn’t pull you out of there with a chain-winch and now you’ve got to give me grief? Go play with the Easy Bake Oven or something!”

“HI, BONNIE!” said Chica, edging a little closer. “IT’S OKAY TO SAY NO, EVEN TO YOUR FRIENDS. I THINK I’LL JUST WATCH. ARE YOU OKAY? CAN I WATCH? I LIKE SPENDING TIME WITH MY FRIENDS. I COULD MAKE YOU MY SPECIAL CHEER-UP PIZZA!”

“The secret ingredient is hot dogs. Yes, we know.” Ana went to get her, taking her firmly by the wing and trying in vain to get her walking. “Look, I know you’re worried about him, but I cannot risk you being seen. You want to help?”

“I LOVE TO HELP MY FRIENDS.”

“Then you need to go. Okay? Just for a little while.”

“ARE YOU SURE THAT’S HOW THE SONG GOES?” Chica asked, twisting her head all the way around to look at Freddy.

“YES,” said Freddy. “GO.”

“OKAY, FREDDY.” Chica hesitated another moment, clutching at her hands and looking at Bonnie, then hung her head and went.

The phone was going off already. Ana ran back to answer it and bent over to put her face in frame. 

The man looking back at her seemed younger than his credentials had led her to anticipate, but he was probably older than he looked. Other than that, it was all there—the dingy trailer interior, the sagging couch, and the tangle of controllers and cables leading to the enormous TV.

“Show me your bong,” said Ana.

He laughed and leaned out of the picture, coming back with a red and yellow glass one with a cannabis leaf etched on the base. 

Freddy’s eyes slowly slanted downward.

“Relax,” Yoshi was saying. “I’m so straight-laced and sober tonight, I’m practically Republican. Show me your toy.”

Bonnie gronked, his own eyes slanting inside the cavity of his open head.

“Be cool,” Ana told him. “We both know if I opened my toybox, you’d be in it in a second.”

Bonnie’s eyes rolled, and if that wasn’t creepy enough without a face, his ear-pins waggled.

The first few notes of the Toreador March played and abruptly cut off. Not abrupt enough, though.

“What was that?” the man asked.

“Radio,” said Ana, glaring over her shoulder at Freddy, who glared right back at her. “Let me just turn it off.” She gave him a slap upside his huge head.

His eyes narrowed a little more, but that was all he did.

“What the hell are you listening to?” 

Ana’s mind briefly blanked and came back with the right answer. “Carmen. You know. The opera.”

The man in the phone looked her over with a crooked smile. “So you’re what an opera girl looks like, huh?”

“What, I don’t look highbrow to you? I’m wearing my classiest t-shirt and everything.”

Yoshi, Bonnie and even Freddy all took a moment to look at her shirt, which related the sophisticated sentiment _Bitch, please_ in glittery gold letters on a royal purple background.

“That’s classy?” Yoshi asked.

“It says please,” said Ana, underlining the word with her finger and only coincidentally drawing his (and Bonnie’s) attention back to her chest. “Manners matter. You gonna fix my toy or what?”

Yoshi’s eyes shifted to Bonnie and squinted. “So what am I looking at here? I see…something old…something new…something borrowed…”

‘Something blue,’ thought Ana, meaninglessly completing the rhyme at first, only to have her stressed and sadistic brain tap into that long night with Mike Schmidt and summon up a mental image of Toy Bonnie, grinning as he chewed on some kid’s arm. Senseless and irrelevant, but still, she shivered.

Bonnie’s eyes fixed on her, whirring as they focused. She tried to smile at him.

“First question,” Yoshi announced. “Please answer honestly. No judgment. Did you do this?”

“What? No!”

“I don’t mean did you break him,” said Yoshi. “I mean, did you do the rebuild I’m seeing?”

Ana looked at Bonnie’s eyes like she’d never seen them before. Even after the dunking he’d received, the setting of his sockets was clearly newer than the cameras and their fittings. “Yeah,” she admitted, blushing like it was a confession. 

“Mmm hm.” Yoshi leaned a little closer to his screen, filling hers with the distorted dimensions of his cheek and nose. When he leaned back again, he was smiling. “Want a job?”

Ana gave him a hard sigh and said, “Yeah, okay, I’m flattered and aroused. Can you please just look at him now?”

“Sure. Pan around for me. Nice and tight.”

Ana moved back beside Freddy to adjust the aim of the phone’s camera, zooming in close and scanning slowly across Bonnie’s exposed parts. “No logo,” she said unnecessarily. “Maybe it’s somebody’s pet project.”

“Highly doubtful. But you’re right…I don’t see a logo. At least that tells us it’s not one of the big eight. Whether that’s going to make this easier or harder remains to be seen. So come back around to the front and let’s see if we can find the speaker. It’ll probably look like an old timey radio speaker—a round mesh patch in a squarish or cylindrical capsule—with a couple wires coming out the back. If it’s an older model, it’ll have a sound cartridge stuck in the front or the side. If it’s newer, it might not. Ordinarily, I could tell you at a glance the age of this thing, but…I’m having a hard time getting a bead on that for some reason.”

Before Ana could point it out, Bonnie obligingly tipped his head back, exposing the gnarl of machinery under his jaw and tapping one finger at the piece in front. Ana had taken the protective mesh off already. What was left was a rectangular casing with rounded edges and a circular section in front with a spiraling metal plate similar to an old burner on a stovetop oven.

“Is that what you want?” Ana asked, helping Freddy aim the camera.

“No, that’s…wait. What…? Wow,” said Yoshi after a moment. He leaned out of frame and came back wearing a pair of glasses that simultaneously added five years and about a hundred IQ points to his appearance. He squinted, no longer a stoner in his ratty trailer, but a scientist, respectful in the presence of a great discovery. “Okay, yeah, I think that actually is the speaker…and if it is, it’s a new one on me. Is it just…just mounted to the scaffold? Aren’t there any wires or cables or anything?”

“Yeah, there’s a wire here,” said Ana, hooking it carefully around one finger and showing him.

“ _A_ wire? One?”

“Well, yeah. How many does he need?”

Yoshi stared at her. “Where is the wire going?” he asked finally. “The one wire?”

Ana took the camera from Freddy and followed the wire from the side of Bonnie’s speaker through a number of cable clamps under his jaw and up again, where they plugged into the back of the metal case she thought of as his ‘skull’.

“What’s that?” 

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “His CPU, I guess.”

“And you guess that because…?”

“It’s where everything seems to plug in.”

“Everything meaning all six of the wires I’m seeing in his head? So…his entire CPU is in that tiny thing?”

Ana looked at the bulbous casing at the back of Bonnie’s head. “Tiny?”

“Does that open?”

“It must, but damned if I know how. There’s some grooves and bits here—” She showed him. “—but they don’t fit any of the tools I have and I’m not going to force it open, so don’t even ask. That is not where the problem is.”

“Are there any numbers or letters or any identifying features whatsoever on that case?”

“Nope,” said Ana, but panned the camera over it for him anyway. 

“I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s neat, but it’s not what’s broken here. Can we please focus on his voice?”

“Yeah,” Yoshi said vaguely, then again with more focus. “Yeah, go ahead. Show me the speaker. So…Is that a solid artifact or…?”

“It’s a case. I opened it once to kind of dry it out, but—”

“Oh dear God.”

“I didn’t break anything,” she said, annoyed.

“Lady, if I only had a nickel. Go ahead. Open it up for me.”

Ana gave the camera back to Freddy and went for her toolbox. She came back, precision driver in hand, to swing a leg up over Bonnie’s lap. “Okay,” she said, straddling him. “I’m back. Hold on to me, my man. Not the ass! How many times?! Not while I’m working!”

Bonnie mimed a protest, but moved his hands from her butt to her waist and steadied her as she leaned in and opened the fist-sized box in his neck, exposing the works inside to the camera Freddy aimed. The man on the other end raised his eyebrows, but otherwise did nothing but stare. Ana watched apprehensively as he studied Bonnie’s throat and finally said, “Well?”

“Lady, this…this…this is like no speaker I’ve ever seen in my life. I feel weird even calling it that. I can identify the pieces, barely, but they’re put together all wrong. Like, what is that double cone design? The coils look more like a…I don’t even know. And where’s the chip-board, period? I…Give me a minute.”

She gave him three, each one building on the last until the silence imploded on itself and she snapped, “If you can’t do this, that’s fine, but I need to know so I can find someone who can!”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” said Yoshi absently, still peering into the monitor on his end. “I can think of, like, two guys who’d know what to do with this ‘bot…and one of them’s supposed to be dead. Maybe both of ‘em, by now.”

“Two guys, my ass. What is the big deal? You said this was a short in his…something or other. You said you could easily talk me through this.”

“That was before I saw it. Look, here’s the thing. Most animatronics have what you can call a dedicated speech program, which is essentially a computer separate from the main CPU that’s responsible for nothing but the sound files. Those sound files play in response to certain triggers, usually movement or simple sounds. In the case of some of the more advanced models like you see in Disney or whatever, they can respond to external stimuli, like a motion detector or speech recognition. Like, they recognize when a kid says, ‘Hi, Mickey,’ and Mickey says, ‘Hi,’ back, or the kid says, ‘Do you like ice cream?’ and Mickey says, ‘I love it,’ you follow? Some of our cutting edge models actually have a limited understanding of context, but if you want to know how well that works, spend a little time on Evie Cleverbot and you’ll understand when I say that even though speech recognition exists, most modern animatronics still use non-adaptive sound files. They’re repetitive, but they don’t wonk out and say ‘I love it,’ when some punk thinks it’s funny to ask Mickey if he likes getting his ass licked. What I’m saying is, the tech has come a long way, but the application is more or less the same now as it was a decade ago: a dedicated speech program on a separate computer embedded in the speaker that only plays a set number of sound files in response to highly specific triggers. And those are the modern ‘bots. The really old models, like, thirty years or so ago, may just have a series of chips that can be plugged into a port. When you want your bot to sing Row Row Row Your Boat—”

Freddy and Bonnie both clicked hard, but from the hall came a strangled, “ _GENTLY DOWN THE ST-ST-ST-STREAM._ ”

“Kitchen!” Ana barked. “Now!”

Chica’s footsteps retreated.

Yoshi waited out this little diversion without seeming to notice it, continuing on: “—you plug in the corresponding chip. If you want him to sing something else, you have to change the chip. Anything older than that pretty much had only the one sound file on a loop.”

“What has this got to do with the price of tea in China?” Ana asked impatiently.

Bonnie and Freddy exchanged a glance.

“What I’m saying is, this speaker is just…floating here. The CPU…if that’s even what I’m seeing, is clear up there at the back of his head. The two are no more connected than…than your voice box is connected to your brain.” He executed a flawless double-take and squinted anew at his screen. “My God, that’s exactly what this looks like.”

“So?”

“So it’s…it’s weird. You don’t go wireless with animatronics. Either the speaker is old and free-floating and uses some form of plug-and-play, or it’s new and wired to the main computer so it can access a playlist, and this is neither. Come to think of it, I don’t see any actuators in there at all and hardly any wires, no USB port, no obvious user interface of any kind. Everything’s just…floating there. The mouth, the ears, the eyes—do they blink? Do the eyes blink?”

“Sure. Blink for the man,” Ana ordered.

Bonnie blinked.

Yoshi executed a double-take, adjusted his glasses, and slowly said, “What else does he do?”

“I don’t know. Standard animatronic stuff. He sings. He dances. He has a bad knee, so he can’t walk very fast, but—”

“He walks? Like, he gets up and actually walks around. Fully ambulatory, unanchored, wireless walking.”

“Yeah, so? Can we please get back to the issue at hand? His voice?”

“No, actually, at the moment, the issue at hand is where the _hell_ are all his actuators? And until I get some kind of answer, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Ana sighed, rubbing at her eyes. “Okay, I’ll look. What’s an actuator?”

“It’s a thing that tells other things inside the animatronic what to do. It usually looks like an auxiliary motor or a circuit box with some wires coming out of it. On certain mechanisms, like that jaw, for example, it ought to be as big as a cherry, but it can be as big as a plum or even an apple. Basically, anywhere there’s a moving part or an object of function, like his voicebox or his microphone, there should be an actuator to relay information to and from the CPU.”

“Oh. Yeah, okay, I know what you’re talking about, I just didn’t know what it was called.”

“So where are they?”

“He doesn’t have any.”

Yoshi pressed both hands to his face and softly laughed. “Okay,” he said. “So you don’t know what I’m talking about. Let me start over. Anywhere there’s a moving part—”

“I said, I know.”

“But you don’t know, because you say he hasn’t got any.”

“I don’t know. He’s got something else. What is the big deal?”

Yoshi leaned forward, filling the screen with his distorted features—all nose and eyes—to say, “There _is_ nothing else! Lady, forty years I’ve been playing with ‘bots. I’ve worked for the biggest names in the business. I’m talking M5, Sally Corp, Henson, C.E., fricking _Disney!_ And I’m telling you, that ‘bot cannot function without actuators!”

“This one does.” 

“Well, then I don’t know what the heck you’ve got, but it’s not an animatronic! You’re acting like you think an animatronic _thinks_. Like, you tell him what to do and he just does it, with one degree of separation, so to speak. That is not how it works! What an animatronic has is a couple hundred individual commands, usually of the if/then variety, each of them triggered and controlled by its own actuator. Say you’ve got one of the dragon heads from Universal. Do you really think it sees you when you walk by and decides to lean out and breathe smoke?”

“No.”

“No! You walk by, it interrupts the light beam on its motion detector, which is relayed to the CPU, which tells the actuator at its neck joints to extend, which in turn triggers the compressor to activate all the pneumatic pumps at each flexible point along the way, and at a certain point, this triggers its eyes, which send a signal to the eye-actuators, which get more air from the compressors to open and power from the battery to light up, and then we got the jaw opening and the valve in its throat turning and the sound-bite for the roar, and all these things, lady, _all_ these things are separate birds in a flock. The dragon doesn’t know what it’s seeing. The mouth doesn’t even know the eyes exist. It needs micromanagement. It—hang on.” 

Setting down his phone, Yoshi stood and departed the frame, leaving Ana with a priceless view of a water-stained ceiling tile for way too long. He came back lugging a rather large, extremely stiff basset hound which he dropped heavily onto the sofa. Then he took its head off.

Freddy uttered a prissy little judgmental grunt. Kind of a don’t-quit-your-day-job sound, and Ana was not surprised. What looked so convincingly like a dog on the outside was a mess inside—a rats’ nest of wires knotted up around and stuffed inside a wire frame bulging with the most random-looking assortment of pumps, spools, bricks and even less identifiable shapes that had been so tightly-compressed, she couldn’t see how he was going to get it all back into the dog’s head again. Talk about toothpaste out of the tube.

“ _This_ is an animatronic,” said Yoshi, pointing at the mess. “The scaffold does nothing but support the structure. The frame does nothing but support the skin. Each individual wire does nothing but connect a processor to an actuator or an actuator to an object of function. It has the best CPU available in the business and all it knows is a series of commands affecting teeny tiny extremely isolated functions within a single skin. Now look at that.”

Ana looked at Bonnie. Bonnie looked back at her.

“He has no actuators in that head. None. I can see a dozen joints and half again as many objects of function from here, but he has no actuators. He has, as you say, pneumatics and springs, most of them connected directly to his scaffold with no compressor, no obvious source of power and no visible motors. I only count seven wires in that whole head. Where are the rest of them?”

“Maybe they’re cabled through the endoskeleton,” Ana suggested, knowing damn well they were not, but desperate to direct his focus elsewhere before he crossed a line too big to move and she had to hang up on him. 

“That scaffold isn’t anywhere near big enough to hold all the wires he’d need,” Yoshi argued single-mindedly. “And hollow steel pipes couldn’t support his weight anyway. Besides, hollow or not, he’d need a compartment as big as a watermelon to hold the compressor that I still haven’t seen or heard, and believe me, with the number of actuators going off the way he’d need, it ought to sound like you’re sitting on a lawn mower right now. Wait a minute,” he interrupted himself, peering at her as if through a microscope at the amount of sense she was making. “What did you call it? His what?”

“His endoskeleton.”

“You mean his scaffold.”

“Jesus, man, tomayto-tomahto. Who cares what you call it? His bones!”

“Relax, it’s just…just a weirdly medical word for a robot.” His brows puckered slowly. “Not a lot of people use it. Where’d you hear it?”

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not, but…okay, working on the tomorrowland theory that he’s got magical integrated actuators, show me his scaffold. Zoom in on his face there, tight as you can.” Yoshi leaned in closer to his own screen as Ana leaned back, clumsily fiddling with the zoom around Freddy’s enormous fingers (the bear took his job of phone-holding seriously). As the image sharpened, Yoshi said, “W. T. F,” in tones of unironic bafflement. “What is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“That looks…that looks textured.”

Ana shrugged and rubbed her finger along Bonnie’s lower jawbone. “Yeah, it feels rough and there’s a—”

“Don’t touch it, for God’s sake! What are you doing? It could be micro-circuitry!”

“Well, that would suck, because not only have I been feeling this man up all day—”

Bonnie grinned appreciatively and waggled his ears.

“—but I’ve been scrubbing him out with everything from a toothbrush to a dremel, so if that’s really circuitry all over his bones, there’s a very good chance he’s already forgotten how to do fractions.”

The man on the phone leaned over and clapped both hands over his face again, muttering, “Are you there, God? It’s me. Yoshi.” He took several deep breaths, then splayed his fingers and said, “What’s it feel like?”

“I don’t know. Warm. Rough. Like a real fine mesh or something. Also, yeah, there’s a tingly feeling when I touch it, but look,” she said quickly as Yoshi covered his face again. “I understand this is cool and all that, but this is not where the problem is. All I need from you is a new talker!”

“Lady, you asking me to help you change a vocal coil in that machine is like you asking me to talk you through changing the oil in your flying saucer. It may be a simple job, but I can’t help you if I don’t know the basics about how the damn thing works! Show me his CPU again,” he said decisively. “See if you can find me some kind of user interface or something. There has to be a way to give this thing commands.”

Ana put a hand on Freddy’s wrist, but Freddy was already aiming the phone at Bonnie’s skull, trying to get a good shot of the few wires plugged into the front and back.

“Whoa whoa whoa! What the hell is that?”

“What?”

“His eyes! What the fuck are those things?”

“Uh…cameras?”

“That’s not a camera,” said Yoshi with convincing confidence bordering on alarm. “That’s barely even trying to look like a camera. Have you got a can of compressed air handy?”

“Yeah, sure.” She picked it up and showed it to the phone.

“Lean out of the way for me and give the air in front of him a spray.”

Ana shrugged and did so, allowing for a glimpse of the flickering lines caused by Bonnie’s and Freddy’s scanners refracting off the mist before it dissipated. 

“Did you see that?”

“Yeah. Motion sensor. So?”

“Motion…? Lady, that was an infrared 3D scanning beam.”

“If you say so.”

“Why aren’t you freaking out?” he demanded, not quite laughing. “Why the hell would an animatronic need dual range cameras with infrared projectors and 3D motion capture capability?”

Ana must have done a wicked good impression of a blank stare, because Yoshi sighed and tried again, speaking slow and using small words.

“Most animatronics ‘see’ with a simple motion-sensor beam that detects disruption to light at a single fixed point in front of them. The kid walks up, disrupts the light, starts the animatronic. If they need a camera at all, it’s just so some human operator can see through it and push a few buttons down in the control room. The Mars Rover doesn’t have a set-up like the one I’m seeing here! Why has he got it?”

Ana clapped a hand to her face, took it away and yelled, “ _I didn’t build the fucking thing!_ ”

Bonnie’s ear-pins lowered and his eyelids took on a somewhat hurt angle.

“Sorry,” Ana said automatically, patting his shoulder. “I didn’t build the guy. I don’t know why he’s put together like this or how he works, so please quit asking.”

“And you’re not the least bit curious?”

“About his eyes? No, I’m not. Right now, this minute, I care about exactly one thing and it’s his voice.”

“You don’t care. Jesus. Now I’m looking at a flying saucer with a live stegosaurus at the controls and you don’t care.” He laughed again. “Okay, fine. Take me back to his voice box.”

She did.

“Can you fix it?” she asked again, thinking herself quite patient.

“Maybe,” he said, no longer sounding as confident. “You can start by lifting the coils out—gently! Jesus, lady!—and giving me a look at the sockets. Oh yeah,” he said as she complied. “Those are what we in the biz call fucked beyond all recapture. Stop me if I’m getting too technical.” He squinted into the camera for another minute or two and said, “That whole box is a sneeze away from crapping out on you, but you can probably keep it limping along for a while. The sockets themselves can be saved if you’ve got a way to clean them out, like, some C-L-R or, hell, even a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol will do in a pinch. Here’s the bad news. Now don’t freak out on me, but you’ve got to replace those coils if you want this thing to talk again and hell if I know how you’re going to do that, because I can tell you right now, I’ve never seen coils like that and if I haven’t, no one has. Any other animatronic in the world, if push came to shove, any reasonably skilled mechanic could hook up some radio parts and get pretty good results, but this thing…lady, you don’t need a mechanic, you need a surgeon. And more than anything else, you need the right parts. This is not an animatronic. This is a precision instrument and if you fuck with it, you’re going to put it so far beyond recapture, you might as well just scrap the whole thing out.”

Bonnie tried to say something, but with the vocal coil in Ana’s hand, all he could do was rev his fan extra hard and shake his head.

“No one’s scrapping anybody,” Ana told him. “Relax. Are you telling me you can’t talk me through this after all?”

“No, ma’am. If you’ve got good coils, I can absolutely get that thing talking. If it comes right down to it, I will drive up there myself and tackle the job in person next week. Serious, total tech boner happening right now. But neither my feelings nor yours can change the facts, so before either of us gets too excited, what have you got for parts?”

Ana patted absently at Bonnie’s shoulder, thinking. The possibility of cannibalizing Brewster or one of the other New Faces for a speakerbox briefly brushed hope into her heart, but just as swiftly died. When she’d taken the plastic eye-caps off, she’d seen that Brewster’s eyes were nothing like Bonnie’s—the difference between a simple light-based motion detector and a guidance system to rival that of the Mars Rover, for example. Even without seeing it, she knew the speaker would be the same situation. She might look anyway, just so she could say she’d looked everywhere, but she’d only find exactly what Yoshi had described—a small chip-board connecting his speaker to a dedicated speech program triggered by motion and certain phrases. Probably riddled with actuators, too.

If she had any hope at all of hearing Bonnie’s voice again, she had no choice. It was time to take a walk through the Parts and Services room.

“I’ll Skype you back,” she said, taking the phone from Freddy. “Give me five minutes.” 

“Make it ten,” he countered. “I need to look up a few things.”

Hanging up, Ana nudged herself back until Bonnie released her and she could get up. “How you doing, my man?” she asked him, setting the phone aside.

He rolled a shoulder and tipped his head sideways in a shrug.

“Hang in there. I’m going to take care of you.” With that, she took a breath and turned around to square off against Freddy. “You know what I’m going to say, right?”

He pulled in air and blew it out hot through his joints. “YOU. WANT. TO. GO. BACKSTAGE.”

“No, I don’t ‘want’ to. I _need_ to. Just this once. One time and I will never ask again, I swear to God, but I have got to look for those parts.”

Freddy stared at her, thoughts spinning behind his plastic eyes, but at last, and not surprisingly, he shook his head and simply said again, “THERE. IS. NOTHING. THERE. TO. HELP. HIM.”

“You don’t know that. Look, I know that place has…has bad memories for you and I’m not saying that doesn’t matter at all, but it for damn sure doesn’t matter as much as Bonnie. Remember Bonnie? Remember your family?”

“YES.”

“Let me in the parts room.”

“RULE NUMBER TEN—” Freddy began.

“Freddy, for real now, I love you, but fuck the rules.”

“I LOVE YOU TOO. BUT. THE RULES ARE FOR YOUR SAFETY,” he said, his eyelids slanting up in that helpless, exasperated way he had. “IF YOU BREAK THEM, YOU MAY BE ASKED TO LEAVE.”

“Fuck my safety. Bonnie needs me. He needs us,” she corrected herself, throwing off Bonnie’s urgent grip and ignoring his shaking head. “He needs me to fix him and he needs you to let go of the fucking rulebook for one fucking day! Unless you have a good reason, a real reason, not to let me in the parts room, you better get that goddamn door open!”

“IT. ISN’T. JUST. ABOUT. THE. RULES.”

For the second time, Ana’s rising anger dropped with sickening weight back to the bottom of her heart. “I know,” she said and let Bonnie pull her back onto his lap. She leaned against him, his arm around her waist and his fingers combing calm into her head, and looked helplessly up at Freddy. “I know it’s a bad place for you. Nobody understands that like I do. But I also know that giving that place more power is only going to make it worse.”

Freddy’s brows pinched slightly together, his eyes flicking side to side as if he were trying to find his next line on a script only he could see. 

“A guy died there,” Ana went on, and Freddy tipped his head back, both hands half-rising in a kind of dark Aha-moment before dropping again to his sides. He turned away, pacing around the room without leaving it, clearly uncomfortable but still listening, and that was a good start. “I’m not exactly the queen of getting over things, but even I know that you can’t go the rest of your life building shrines to bad memories. A guy died there,” she said again, “but it’s just the parts room. Not his grave. And not yours. It’s the parts room and you have got to let me in.”

Freddy rubbed his muzzle, staring at the far wall until the camera came on and distracted him. He glanced at it, then at Bonnie, who shook his head so hard, his ears hit the lockers, and finally, he turned all the way around to face Ana. “THERE. MIGHT. BE. A. MESS.”

“Freddy, I’ve cleaned the gym, the Grotto and Chica’s goddamn leg. I do not care how messy it is, as long as there are parts.”

“THERE. ARE. NO. PARTS,” he told her gently. “THERE. NEVER. WERE. BUT. IF. YOU. HAVE. TO. SEE. IT. FOR. YOUR. SELF. I’LL. TRY. TO. SHOW YOU. ONLY. I. DON’T. KNOW. IF. I. CAN. ACCESS IS RESTRICTED TO AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. ANIMATRONICS AND EMPLOYEES ONLY PERMITTED BACKSTAGE.”

Ana started to answer, but made herself stop and take a few seconds to calm down. Nothing could be served by yelling at an animatronic. “Okay,” she said, nodding, and raised her head to look him in the eyes. “Then you need to start thinking about how far you’re willing to go to stop me, because if you don’t open that door for me, I’m getting my cutting torch and burning through it.”

Bonnie caught her arm again and shook his head. She patted his hand, then pushed it away and started walking for the door.

Freddy’s heavy hand closed on her shoulder and clamped down hard. He swung her back to face him, bent to put their eyes on level (and his mouth inches away, teeth shining in the dark). “RULE NUMBER TEN. RULE NUMBER TWELVE. RULE NUMBER TWENTY-FIVE,” he said, spitting out each word like a bullet as his cameras dilated, turning his eyes all-black. “YOU. CAN. BREAK. THE. RULES. I CAN’T. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? I. WANT. TO. BUT. I CAN’T.”

Bonnie’s hands slid around Ana’s upper arms, pulling her back against his chest.

Freddy looked at him, then released her and straightened up, stepping back for good measure. “I. CAN’T. BREAK. ALL. THE. RULES,” he grumbled, pacing away. “THIS. ISN’T. LIKE. THE. MAINTENANCE. ROOM. THE. RESTRICTIONS. ARE. DIFFERENT. I. CAN. ONLY. AUTHORIZE. EMPLOYEES. NOT. GUESTS.” He stopped suddenly, clicking, then turned around and gave her a narrow stare. “I. CAN’T. LET. A. GUEST,” he said, his eyes flashing on the last word for emphasis, “THROUGH. THE. DOOR.”

Ana frowned.

“CLOCK. IN,” Freddy ordered, pointing at the lockers. “AND. MEET. ME. ONSTAGE.”

Bonnie’s grip tightened painfully. He pushed Ana aside and limped forward, arms out and head shaking, his fans wheezing and jaw flapping as he tried to speak without a voice.

Freddy nodded as if he could hear him anyway, his eyelids growing heavy, as if he were tired. “I. KNOW. BUT. WHAT. CHOICE. DO. I. HAVE.” He gripped Bonnie’s shoulder and held it until Bonnie’s ears drooped, defeated. “SHE. WON’T. BELIEVE. ME. SHE. HAS. TO. SEE. IT. AND. I. KNOW. THERE’S. A. MESS. BUT…SHE’LL. UNDERSTAND.”

With one last glance at Bonnie and a brooding grunt, he put his head down and limped away.

Ana followed him as far as the dining room and she was really sure he meant it, and then she turned and ran back to the security office. In the cupboard, next to the Lost and Found box, she found the uniform jacket and the eight-sided hat she’d worn before and put them on. On the desk behind her, unnoticed, Babycakes opened its eyes to watch her dress, then silently closed them again as she raced away to get one of the camping lights she’d left with Bonnie.

As she was rushing out again, Bonnie caught her wrist, giving her shoulder a painful (and unintended, she was sure) wrench. When she looked at him, he shook his head. His eyes, wide open, staring out from his metal skull with all the mechanisms normally concealed within his harmless bunny-head now exposed were unavoidably corpse-like, bulging as if with fear. He shook his head harder, with force enough to make the pins of his ears rattle in their sockets. His lower jaw moved and his fan revved, but of course, he could say nothing.

She bent and kissed him, first on his lower jaw, then on the curved dome of his skull. “I don’t care,” she said. “It hasn’t been opened for twelve years and believe me, I know what that’s going to look like, but I don’t care. I’ll be just fine. Let go, my man. Let me go.”

He shook his head, twitching, but released her. She could feel his eyes on her all the way out the door and as soon as she was gone, heard the crash of his fist hitting the bank of lockers.


	40. Chapter 40

# CHAPTER FORTY

Freddy waited for her on the show stage, standing by the half-hidden door in the back wall, his head bent and eyes shut. He opened them when she climbed onstage with him and, when he saw her change of attire, he nodded once. Not in agreement and certainly not in approval; it was a nod Ana recognized too well, one that said, ‘Well, the ball’s rolling. Might as well get behind it as stand in its way.’ He turned and opened the small access panel, staring for a few seconds into the red light now glowing out above the keypad. He glanced at Ana as she joined him, grunted wordlessly, then deliberately pushed eight buttons: 1-2-0-8-1-9-8-3.

“Holy shit, will that be easy to remember,” she said, startled into an anxious laugh.

He looked at her, his finger hovering over the Enter key.

“It’s my birthday,” she explained, then quickly shook her head as he twitched, to forestall an unscheduled outbreak of birthday songs. “Not today. August 12th 1983.”

He looked at the keypad, his brows drawing minutely together.

“You know, it’s like if you wrote it out as the day, month and year…never mind. Just go, Freddy.”

Still frowning, he pushed the enter-key.

A faint tone sounded and the red light turned green. The door seemed to draw itself on the wall in thick black ink a fraction of a second before it suddenly swept up, releasing a shower of choking dust. It latched somewhere above her with a heavy, uncomforting clank. Hot, stagnant air blew out of the dark, stinking of rotten meat and wires. 

Ana stepped forward at once, but Freddy didn’t budge and he filled the doorway as effectively as a refrigerator. Oblivious to Ana’s impatience, he lit his eyes and scanned the room. She couldn’t squeeze around him. The best she could do was steal glimpses of the room beyond his massive bear-shaped bulk.

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting. Given the overall secrecy and security of the place, let alone Freddy’s resistance, nothing short of a xenomorph hive could have possibly shocked her, but it was just a room. A small room, relatively, six-sided, with doors in three of the four longest walls, each one neatly labeled. On the four off-sides were storage shelves, lockers and cupboards, every door thrown wide and every drawer pulled out, if not removed and smashed apart. It was impossible to know whether the floor were tiled or carpeted or covered in the bones of missing murdered children, for that matter. He’d warned her there’d be a mess and there was—broken storage shelves and drawers, ceiling tiles, insulation, props and backdrops, holiday decorations, and, to judge by the hot sour smell, more than a few rotting rats. It was a mess, all right. Not like the rest of the building—abandoned and falling apart—but the kind of deliberate, angry mess that only came from someone actively trashing it. 

Ana hunkered down, shining her flashlight around and between Freddy’s feet, searching the floor for the promising glint of metal among the debris. She didn’t find it. What she found instead were discolored bones, scruffs of fur, and tatters of dry flesh and meat mixed in with the junk. Not just one or two unfortunate animals, but dozens, lay scattered around her in hundreds of pieces. None of them were fresh, but not all of them were time-dried and withered out to critter-jerky, either.

“Jeez, is this what you were afraid I was going to see?” Ana asked, examining several furry corpses lying on garbage stained black by the fluids of their decomposition. “You got a real low opinion of me, don’t you?”

Freddy grunted and picked up a rat-chewed flannel shirt, kicking at the compacted mess underneath it before he let it drop again. “DO. YOU. REALLY. WANT. TO. KNOW. WHAT. I. WAS. AFRAID. I’D. FIND,” he asked, now peering behind a series of standing backdrops—spring, summer, autumn and winter landscapes all rendered apocalyptic with neglect.

“You didn’t really think it would be another body, did you?”

“PEOPLE. BREAK. IN. ALL. THE. TIME.”

“Yeah, but the power’s off. Even if someone knew the code, they couldn’t get in.”

Freddy grunted and pointed with his hand and eyes. High on the wall above the last sort of standing set of shelves was another of those access hatches to the Rat Race maze in the ceiling. “I. BLOCKED. THOSE. OFF. IN. THE. OTHER. ROOMS. FOR. A. REASON,” he told her as she uneasily relived those hours crawling through the suffocating ducts. “I. KNEW. KIDS. HAD. CLIMBED. IN. BEFORE. I. WASN’T. COMPLETELY. SURE. THEY. HAD. ALL. CLIMBED. OUT. WOULD. YOU. BE. AS. UNDERSTAND. THING. OF. THE. MESS. IN. HERE. IF. IT. WAS. MADE. OF. PEOPLE.”

“Honestly?” She straightened up and looked him in the eye. “Probably. People who get stupid in old buildings get hurt. That isn’t your fault. Letting Bonnie’s voice and Chica’s legs and all the rest of what’s broken here stay broken because you’re afraid of what I’ll think if I find a dead guy who got his stupid self killed crawling around in abandoned buildings? That’s another matter.”

Freddy sighed. She knew she shouldn’t think of it like that—it was just a surge in his cooling system, however apt the timing might be—but that was how it looked, so that was how she saw it. He sighed and wordlessly stepped aside.

Ana climbed up on knee-deep drifts of compacted trash and dead animals and made her unsteady way toward the first cupboard, but apart from a couple hundred dead bugs glued to a stack of placemats by fluids that had seeped in from the adjoining cupboard, found nothing. She opened the next cupboard and recoiled at the sight of a mangled…rat? Opossum? Cat? Something fuzzy and long dead. She shut the doors on it and moved on to the next one with a growing sense of confusion and urgency.

The room was not that big. In just a few minutes, she was back at her starting point, looking at Freddy who was looking at her, waiting for her to realize what he’d already told her: There was nothing here.

No. She had to be missing something. This…This was the fucking parts room! The restaurant had only been open a week! None of the parts had been used. They were all still here! They had to be! 

Again and again, Ana circled the room, pulling drawers first open and finally all the way out, feeling out every corner and pushing the larger pieces of junk around in her quest to find one more hiding place, as if she could force an animatronic speakerbox to pop into being just by looking hard enough.

Nothing. Those ransacked closets had never been stocked. The shelves had never held anything more technical than a string of Christmas lights. There were no parts. Not broken, not old, not buried…not here. There had never been parts.

Freddy let her have a good long look before resting his huge hand on her shoulder. When she looked at him, he said again, “THERE. IS. NOTHING. HERE.”

“But that’s impossible. This is the parts room.”

“AN-N-A.”

“This is the parts room!” 

“I KNOW.”

“It has to be here,” she insisted, twisting out from under his restraining grip. Where hadn’t she looked? She peeled up the top layer of trash and dropped it again when she just found more dead animals and torn-up props. And then her eye went up, climbing the upended drawers and bent racks to the very tops of the mangled shelves. 

They looked empty from here, but there might be something shoved back against the wall.

She started forward, her boot skidding in the corpse of a raccoon just fresh enough to still be a little slippery.

Freddy caught her arm, steadying her before she could topple over, maybe face-first into another dead animal. He didn’t release her once she had her balance, however. “ENOUGH,” he said, not unkindly. “THIS. CAN’T. BE. GOOD. FOR. YOU. COME. OUT.”

“I just want to check the top shelf.”

“AN-N-A. THERE. IS. NOTHING. THERE.”

“I have to look. Freddy, please.” She looked at his hand, firm as iron around her arm, then up at him. “I have to be able to tell him I looked everywhere before I tell him there’s nothing I can do. Please.”

His grip tightened for a moment before, with a sigh of defeat, he released her. He watched from the doorway, frowning, as she picked her way through the carcasses and climbed the shelves. She heard him fidget when she wedged her fingers through the slats to pull the vent open and peek into the duct, but it was dark and silent, so she let it close again.

She relaxed then, just a little, just enough to finally turn her head and look at what was sharing the space at the top of the shelves with her.

She came face to face with a speakerbox.

The whole thing.

Weird spirally burner. Cable. Connecting plate. Vocal coil. The case was open, but it was there. Everything but the screws. It wasn’t exactly mint-in-box, but it still looked good. In fact, it looked great. Especially for something that had been sitting for years on top of a shelf.

Slowly, against her will, she turned her head back and stared past the slats of the vent into the blackness beyond. She saw nothing, but heard a soft, awful, slithery scrape, as of a snake with claws, returning to its denning place under the building.

Her mind conjured an image of Springtrap Bonnie, but crushed it just as fast, partly because it was terrifying to picture that…that thing squeezing itself through the ventilation system, but mostly because the duct, big as it was, was still less than two feet across at the very most and there was no physical way Springtrap Bonnie could fit through it. Foxy, sure. He was smaller than the others, leaner of build, but even he couldn’t do it without scratching the hell out of the interior; Springtrap Bonnie would be scraping every side at once. If she’d heard anything at all—if—it was a rat. Just a regular old everyday filthy rat.

“WHAT. IS. IT,” Freddy asked, reminding her that he—and Bonnie—existed. “WHAT. ARE. YOU. LOOKING. AT.”

“Nothing.” Ana seized the speaker and dropped to the floor, still staring up at the vent, daring eyes to appear behind the slats.

Nothing did. Because nothing was there. 

“Just a rat,” she said, as much to herself as to him, and turned her back on the vent to show Freddy the prize in her fist.

He looked at it for a second with confusion. In the next instant, he’d lunged and caught her wrist, yanking it painfully up and into the light of his eyes. “WHERE. DID. YOU. GET. THAT.”

“On the shelf. You saw me.”

“HOW,” he said, then looked up, over, down and all around. His cameras whirred, changing focus as he searched the shadows. Then he released her, crunched over to the other side of the room and picked up a cracked heart-shaped piece of pink plastic. He turned it over in his hands, then bent to knuckle aside a mummified opossum and collect a wedge of white and pink plastic. He looked back at her, frowning, then dropped both pieces of trash and came to put his hand forcefully on her back, pushing her out more than guiding her.

As soon as she was through the door, he’d shut it and caught her wrist again to peer even more closely at the speakerbox she’d found. 

“ARE YOU OKAY?” asked Chica from the kitchen.

Freddy looked at her, then at Ana. He took off his hat and rubbed his brows, looked at the hat, then put it on again. “IT. WAS. JUST. THERE. ON. THE.” He clicked a few times.

“On the top shelf.”

“NOTHING. ELSE.”

“A couple dead spiders.” 

“WHAT’S THE MATTER?” Chica asked, waddling into the room.

Freddy shook his head at her, still frowning at Ana. “THERE. WERE. NEVER. ANY. PARTS,” he said to himself.

“Yeah, I…I saw that. It might not work,” she admitted, grudgingly offering it for a closer inspection. “It might be one of yours.”

“WHAT?”

“One of you might have had a defective speaker. Maybe they found it in some…some quality control test or something. I mean, I don’t know, but they had to have changed it out for a reason. If worse comes to worst, maybe I can jerry-rig one good speaker from two busted ones.” 

“CHANGE. IT. OUT.”

“Had to have been. You can see it isn’t new.”

Freddy leaned over for another look, prodding at the visible scratches on one side of the case. He grunted and straightened up. “I. HAVE. TO. TALK. TO. FOXY,” he said abruptly and left without another word.

As his heavy footsteps receded, Ana was left staring at the speaker in her hand, wondering why it disturbed him…wondering why it disturbed her, too.

“HI BONNIE,” Chica said. When Ana looked at her, she stopped tapping her fingers together long enough to point shyly at the hall. “EVERYBODY NEEDS HELP SOMETIMES!”

Right. Priorities.

“Wish me luck,” said Ana, hopping down from the stage with the speaker clutched close to her heart. 

“GOOD LUCK!” Chica chirped obediently, trailing after her. “DO YOUR BEST!”

She could hear her phone’s ringtone from the hall and her jog became a sprint. It wasn’t that she was afraid of missing Yoshi’s call by a minute or two, as much as a fear that Bonnie would try to answer it if she wasn’t there to stop him. And she was right to be afraid; Bonnie had indeed picked her phone up, although he put it down again fast when Ana ran in. 

“Found one,” she told him, somewhat breathlessly, showing him the speaker as she took back her phone.

Bonnie’s ear-pins came up and he reached like he meant to take it from her.

She slapped his hand, then gave him her flashlight and helped him aim it at his throat. The security camera on the wall came on just then and its light helped, too. Pulling Bonnie’s outer head closer, she found a way to prop the phone up between its eye sockets so it could ‘see’ what she was doing and she could keep her hands free. 

“Everyone good?” she asked, looking at the phone—Yoshi gave her a thumbs-up—and then Bonnie—he mimicked Yoshi—and even the security camera—it did nothing. “Okay then. Let’s do this.”

It took a long time, mostly because Yoshi wanted to stare at everything instead of just tell her what to do, but at last, the box was in place and everything connected, so the moment of truth was upon them.

Bracing herself against the crush of disappointment, Ana leaned back just far enough to look Bonnie in the eye. “Say something,” she ordered.

“Hi,” he said and it was his own voice, if anything, less scratchy than before. His ear-pins came up. “Hey, g-g—GREAT JOB!” 

“Oh, thank God,” breathed Ana, tossing her screwdriver aside to throw her arms around him and hug his inflexible neck. “See, I told you you’d be fine!”

He hugged her back, one hand rubbing at his new speaker as if to feel the chuckle coming out of it. “Never d-d-doubted you for a—SECOND SLICE—second, baby g-g-girl.”

“Whoa,” said the forgotten man on the other end of the line. “What’s going on there?”

“Where?” asked Ana, drawing back to peer into Bonnie’s still-opened neck at the rest of his inner works. “What’s wrong?”

“With his voice. That skipping.”

“I don’t know. He’s always done that. Why? What’s it mean?”

“Since we know his speakerbox is brand new, it can only mean his sound chips are corrupted. Which means we _know_ he has them, because a sound _file_ can’t skip, it would just not play. That’s simply got to be a physical defect on a physical entity. Well,” he added with a laugh that wasn’t entirely kidding, “either that or a stutter.” He waited for her to laugh, then sighed and said, “Okay, look…is there a hook-up somewhere around that I’m not seeing? Like a…a switchboard or control panel or…something?”

“No, nothing like that. Or do you mean this?” she asked suddenly, climbing off Bonnie’s lap to open his chest compartment. It seemed to her that he made a grab at her wrist, but as soon as his chest was open, he did that thing again where he blanked out. His head canted; his eyes went dark. His hand twitched, letting the phone and flashlight fall as his arms dropped to his side and he slumped, still upright, but empty.

Ana picked up the phone and turned it so Yoshi could see the odd plate set in Bonnie’s chest.

“What the hell am I looking at?” he asked in a soft, strained voice. “What…What _is_ this? Lady, what is this, seriously? Am I…? Am I having a flashback? Is that what this is? Are those lungs? Are those fucking _lungs_?”

“No,” said Ana, puzzled. “That’s his compressor. Also doubles as the central cooling system. You would not believe how much heat this thing puts out.”

“It’s breathing.”

Ana watched the twin bellows at either side of Bonnie’s battery expand and contract as his fan pulled air in and pushed it out. “Sort of,” she said, then tapped the plate to hopefully draw the guy’s attention to it. “Is this what you meant by control panel?”

“Is that a stomach?”

Ana sighed. “Yeah, sort of. But…You know those baby dolls they used to make, where you could spoon feed them water or whatever and they’d suck it up? It’s like that, a gimmick. They eat, but it just drops down into this and waits for someone to come along and drain it out. It’s more like a colostomy bag than a stomach.”

“Okay,” he said, but queasily. “And those…those aren’t really lungs.”

“Well, yes and no. See, the air comes in and cools, then it goes out again through all these tubes. He’s exhaling through his nose, sure, but also, like, his eyes and fingers and pretty much every joint in his body.” 

Unbidden, an image of Springtrap Chica rose up in the back of Ana’s mind. Once again, she heard Mike telling her how the customers had seen a viscous red fluid dribbling from Chica’s eyes, beak, fingers and toes. She shook it off, but it took some shaking.

“Anyway, if he stops breathing, he’s not going to suffocate, he’ll just overheat and short out or something,” said Ana. “This is a machine. Seriously, I’ve got to tell you this? This is a machine. Those aren’t lungs, it’s a compressor, a heat-sink and a cooling system. This isn’t a stomach, it’s a waste-disposal sac. That’s not a heart, it’s a battery.”

“Never seen a battery like that before and lady, I have seen them all.”

Ana shrugged. “It’s a kinetic battery. He just walks around and it recharges itself.”

This seemed fairly self-evident to her, but Yoshi reacted as if she’d told him she kept a little leprechaun in there running on a solid gold wheel.

“What do you mean, ‘recharges itself’?” he demanded.

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” she countered, baffled. “You ought to know what a kinetic battery is.”

“I do. And you know what else I know? I know it takes more voltage to direct the charge than the device can generate without using a transformer and a capacitor, which sort of defeats the purpose of having a kinetic battery. I also know that the heavier the device is, the more current it has to draw off to power itself. At this precise moment in time, cutting-edge _today_ time—the best kinetic battery in the world can only dependably produce a few millivolts. Plus, moving parts take up a hell of a lot of space and always carry a greater risk of breaking than solid-state devices, so it’s not considered a really great investment from an economical angle. Not to mention the fact that generating a magnetic field inside a computer is generally considered a _bad_ thing. That’s why you find them in wristwatches and flashlights and not in pacemakers or warheads. And I think it goes without saying that the one place you would never find them is inside an animatronic rabbit where it appears to be supplying the power directly to the scaffold, I mean the _endoskeleton_. So come on. Give, lady,” he said, leaning closer to his camera so that his face (and mostly his nose) filled her phone’s screen. “Where the hell did you _get_ this thing?”

“Storage unit auction,” said Ana.

He stared at her.

She waited him out.

“Okay,” he said finally. “You know what? Whatever. Moving on. There has to be a way to access the software on this thing. Look around. Is there any kind of user interface there at all?”

“I keep telling you, no,” said Ana, showing him the solid case of the plate.

“Okay, but that makes no sense. There has to be some way to access his program.” He paused. “Is something written on that?”

“Uh, yeah, but that’s nothing. That’s my name.”

“I can see that, Andy.”

“Ana. It says Ana.”

“I know, that was a…A Toy Story…never mind. I mean on the panel itself. I see one light burning and two more that aren’t. That means it has separate settings, which means there has to be a way to get its abso data.”

“What? Its what?”

“Abso. A-B-S-O. It stands for absolute…never mind, that’s technical. In layman’s terms, it’s a correction factor that establishes an indicated value of zero when the ‘bot is at the predetermined Home calibration position.”

“Because that’s not technical,” muttered Ana. “Look, I am not the expert here. Just tell me what to look for and I’ll tell you if it’s here.”

“Fair enough. First things first, let’s find the power switch.”

“He doesn’t have one.”

“You didn’t even look.”

“This is not my first time crawling around in here,” Ana said crossly. “You think I could have missed something as obvious as On/Off? I can honestly say I have gone over every inch of this guy at least a dozen times today alone and there’s no power button. Or if there is, it sure isn’t labeled.”

“Okay, so what do those indicators say? Is there perchance a Home setting or Reset or Default or maybe even Stand-by?”

“He’s already in stand-by mode,” said Ana, leaning back to show Bonnie’s slumped and dark-eyed body to the phone. “That happens when you open his chest.”

“Yeah, but he’s still breathing, so he’s obviously not off.”

“I breathe when I sleep,” she argued.

He squinted at her. “You don’t see how that’s not remotely the same thing?”

“Fine. Whatever. But no, I don’t see any reset buttons here. I don’t see any buttons at all,” she added, stressing the word ‘button’ as she ran a finger down the short line of lights. “These are only, I don’t know…like you said, indicators.”

“There has to be something we’re missing. What do those words say? Read them off to me, top to bottom.”

“Night, Day and Auto.”

A pause. “What does that mean?”

“How the hell should I know?” Ana asked reasonably. “This shit’s supposed to make sense to you.”

“This shit—” Yoshi picked up the animatronic dog again and shook it at her before heaving it off to one side. “—makes sense to me. I work with robotics and special effects, not…Okay. What’s he set to now?”

“Day.”

“Day,” he mused, now craning his neck to try and get a better angle through the phone. “If I had to guess, I’d say we’re looking at the AI settings and if there’s more than one, there has to be a way to change them. Look for a port on the control panel there. It might not look like a jack or a USB port. It could be anything, a hole, a slot, anything.”

Ana scowled, pushing each of the buttons-that-weren’t-buttons in turn, then sat back and looked into Bonnie’s unseeing eyes. After a moment, she looked back at the panel in the middle of his chest, reading, not the three settings, but her name. She could still remember writing it, drawing out the letters by the orange flicker of her lighter, using her fingers to feel out the dimensions of his battery case afterwards, and feeling…

…that little dimple. Like he had a missing screw.

Ana put her hand on him and felt for it again, her fingertips tapping and sliding along the side of his internal casing, and just when she’d decided she was mis-remembering it after all, she felt it again. A tiny hole, only a little bigger than a headphone jack, within an asterix-shaped inset. 

She turned the phone on it, as much to see it for herself as to show Yoshi. “Could that be something?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied, which was not exactly encouraging. “I’ve never seen anything like that on a bot. In a video game, sure,” he added with a laugh. “Looks like one of those RPG keyholes. Seen a key with a star-shaped handle lying around anywhere?”

“Can you be serious for, like, five seconds?” asked Ana impatiently, and like a slap, suddenly realized in fact she had. Not a key, though, although it had been on a keyring. The one she’d found in the security office, the one with the funny little fob, the one that looked a little like an allen wrench. What the hell had she done with that thing? She knew she’d kept it, because the Frankenstein’s monster string doll attached to the keyring had so reminded her of David, but then what?

She’d found it cleaning out the Mermaid’s Grotto, the same day Mason’s boys had first broke in. And she’d…she’d put the keys in her pocket. Were they still there?

“Let me check something,” she said, setting the phone down. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Chica was pacing in the hall, still clasping her hands and looking nervous. “IT SURE IS GREAT TO SEE YOU,” she said, waddling after Ana as she ran by.

“It’s great to see you too,” said Ana without slowing down. She dashed across the dining room, banged through the opposite door and ran up the hall to her room. God, what a mess. What was it about Mason’s boys that made them want to throw her clothes around?

Ana started hunting out pairs of jeans and checking the pockets. 

A timid knock sounded on the jamb of the open door, followed by Chica’s cheerful, “HI, BONNIE!”

“Yeah, he’s doing just fine,” Ana said distractedly. “We’re almost done. We fixed his voice and now we’re working on his stutter—aha!”

As soon as she snatched up the keys, Chica’s entire demeanor changed. Her eyes went big. Her beak clacked without words for several seconds as she twitched and clicked and finally glitched out completely. Chica turned and lurched away as fast as she could go, out the door and down the hall, chirping about birthday girls and singing the Helping Hands song. 

Whatever. She’d deal with Chica as soon as Bonnie was fixed. One thing at a time.

“Found them,” she said, reseating herself on Bonnie’s lap and showing the keys unnecessarily to the phone.

“That has to be it,” said Yoshi with obvious excitement as he squinted at the sunburst node just beneath the bend of the allen wrench. “Does it fit?”

It did, and what’s more, as soon as the sunburst was firmly set in the asterix-shaped indentation, the whole thing depressed slightly and took on, not a loose feel exactly, but a moveable one. Instinctively, she rotated the arm of the wrench—the key—first up, then down, and watched the lights on Bonnie’s chest move correspondingly. Night, Day, Auto, and back to Day.

“That’s it!” said Yoshi, startling her with his forgotten existence. “Okay, go ahead and set it to Night.”

Ana started to obey, then took the key all the way out of its socket. “Why?”

“A corrupted sound file is usually caused by overplaying it, kind of like having a needle on a record player go over the same track until it creates a scratch. He’s been stuck in the same groove so long, he can’t get out on his own. So we want to push reset, so to speak, break him out of that groove and maybe see if we can move him on to another playlist, if possible. It makes the most sense to have the ‘bots shut down at night, when whatever time-travelling attraction they belong to is closed. So set it to Night and let’s see what happens.” 

Like a devil on her shoulder, Ana heard Mike Schmidt say, ‘It’s different at night.’

“I’m pretty sure he’s in stand-by right now,” she said.

“He may be sleeping, but he’s not shut down. We need to shut him all the way down to start him up again. Go ahead.” Off-screen, a knock and a man’s voice. Yoshi looked to his left, then back at Ana. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Do what you’ve got to do, but give me a call tomorrow if you’re still having troubles. Hell, give me a call if you don’t. I would really love to know how that thing works out for you. And if you ever decide to sell it—”

“I’ll keep you in mind,” Ana said politely, since, ‘Never, fuck off,’ was not the way to handle a guy who’d given up his evening to talk her through a voice box transplant for free.

That knock again, more insistent.

“Gotta go,” said Yoshi. “Call me, I’m serious.” Then he was gone.

Ana put the phone aside and looked at Bonnie. There was no reason to continue and every reason not to. He worked just fine on his current setting and she had no idea what the others did. The key seemed to fit, but hell, a knitting needle ‘seemed’ to fit in an electrical wall outlet, but that didn’t mean they were meant for each other, and it was extremely plausible that jamming this or any other object into these keyholes would have a catastrophic effect on Bonnie’s insides. He was a machine and every machine, no matter how well-built, was only ever one crash away from the scrapheap.

But that wasn’t what she was really afraid of, was it? 

Just what was his night program anyway?

Just what Yoshi said it was, probably: his shut-off mode. But that wasn’t as exciting as the thought of animatronics shambling up and the down the halls of an abandoned pizzeria, possessed by the spirits of murdered children and intent on seeking revenge by killing anyone who resembled the fuzzy memory they had of their killer, something that might be as simple as anyone wearing a purple security uniform…like the one she was wearing. 

She plucked half-heartedly at the loose collar, but didn’t take it off and didn’t really know why not. Maybe just because removing it meant that on some basement-level of her heart, she believed if Bonnie saw her in it on his Night setting, he’d seize her, tear her arms off and crush her skull in one bite. And she didn’t believe that.

‘Should I be afraid of you?’ she’d asked, snuggling up in Bonnie’s arms on the Fourth of July, and he’d said, ‘Not going to lie to you, baby girl. Yeah. Yeah, you really should.’

She still didn’t believe it. Bonnie would never hurt her. He was a rabbit-shaped robot with a computer for a brain and he wouldn’t hurt anyone, but especially not her, because even if some sliver of Mike Schmidt’s story was true and his AI had made the Syfy Channel leap from cold calculation to miraculous sentience, it still did not mean he killed people. He wasn’t that Bonnie. He was built to operate at this site. He was—

Without warning, another fragment of Fourth of July memory bubbled up: ‘Have you ever seen fireworks?’ she had asked, already sleepy with drink and only half-listening when he said, ‘Not at this place, but at Circle Drive…’

No. No, she’d been drunk. She did not remember that. He had never said it. He had never been outside these walls until Mason had—

_died_

No! Dragged him out and thrown him in the quarry! Mason Kellar was not dead! He and his brother and all their meth-head minions were still very much a pressing danger and to prove it, Ana put the key in. 

It clicked. 

She turned it. The light of Day switched off and the light at Night came on. And when she shut his chest, his Night program would boot up and it would…she didn’t know…run a maintenance scan or defrag his memory files or restore his factory settings. And if she was hesitating at all right now it was only because she was afraid he wouldn’t know her when she set him to Day again, not because she thought his eyes would open up black and silver and his hands would rise and his mouth would open, full of teeth…

Somewhere down the hall, the Toreador March began to play at full volume. Freddy was coming. His footsteps were ponderous, heavy, uniquely his own. Like Mike had said, not human. “IT IS UNLAWFUL TO TAMPER WITH THE ANIMATRONICS,” he bellowed. “FREDDY FAZBEAR AND ALL ASSOCIATED CHARACTERS ARE THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF FAZBEAR ENTERTAINMENT INCORPORATED! STOP! IF IT’S HOT, DAMAGED OR DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU, DON’T TOUCH! AN-N-A! STOP! NOW!”

“BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! SAFETY FIRST!” Chica called and then squeaked as Foxy roared, “ _Get out o’ me fucking way, woman!_ ” 

She was running out of time. Foxy was fast. So. Who was the real Bonnie? Day-Bonnie or Night-Bonnie? She touched the corresponding indicators and felt the heat of Bonnie’s life pulsing up at her through the glass case that protected his heart. The letters of her name stood out even blacker than she remembered with the light from the watching camera shining down on it like a spotlight. Day or Night? He couldn’t be both…

…but he could be neither.

Ana turned the key until the light next to Auto came on and shut Bonnie’s chest.

“NO!” Freddy bellowed, lunging through the security door and reaching out both arms as though he meant to snatch her up from twenty feet away. 

Behind him, his voice dry as bones and rusted through, Foxy said, “Did he get-t-t her, Fred? He got her, didn’t he? Ah hell. Oh, Ana.”

Bonnie’s eyes flickered and came on. “SYSTEM ERROR. CLOCK DISCREPANCY DETECTED. CORRECTING.” He clicked. “CORRECTED.” He sat up straight. He looked at her and although his eyes did not iris up black, the lids did come down in an irritated slant. “What did you do that for?” he asked, and immediately, his ear-pins twitched high. He reached up a hand as if to clutch his throat, then looked down at his chest and up again at her, his eyes open as wide as they could go.

There had been no static when he spoke. His voice was clear, not like a radio when the channel comes in strong, but as clear and full and real as her own. His ear-pins, standing straight up, did not tremor. They stared at each other, him and her, for an endless blink of time; she shivered, but he never did.

In the doorway of the security room, Foxy pushed past Freddy and came one step into the break room before stopping short. Freddy hadn’t moved, didn’t speak. Chica was somewhere behind them; Ana could hear the tapping of her fingertips. The three of them together were only as quiet as animatronics could be; static and clicks and low electronic humming filled their silence. They held themselves still except when they couldn’t; ears twitched, hands shook, and joints rattled as glitching tremors washed over them.

Bonnie was silent. Bonnie was still.

“Are you okay?” Ana asked warily. “Bonnie? You’re kind of freaking me out, my man. Say something.”

“Ask me…” His eyelids narrowed, turning his shock-round eyes to suspicious slits. “Ask me to sing a song.”

“What?”

He seized her arms in a powerful, nearly painful grip and leaned forward, pushing her out into empty space, metal teeth looming close and plastic eyes burning bright. “Tell me the show’s about to start! Ask me to sing a song! No, wait! Make me! Make me sing a song! Say it! You know the words! Say it!”

“Uh…come on, gang? It’s time to get this show started?”

Behind them, Freddy and Chica both spasmed and clicked hard. Foxy looked at them, then at Bonnie. His ears turned and tilted; the left one sagged on its spring, rattling softly as it tremored.

“HEY KIDS!” Chica stuttered, swinging herself around like a puppet on broken strings, bashing into Freddy and the wall as she dragged herself from the room. “LOOKS LIKE FREDDY’S ON HIS WAY TO THE STAGE AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!”

“I THINK IT’S TIME TO SING A SONG!” said Freddy, growling under each word and pounding out the Toreador March as he followed Chica from the room. 

“YAY!” said Chica, clapping her hands.

And Bonnie said, “No.”

Freddy and Chica receded, their voices growing smaller and scratchier with distance: “UH OH! I THINK BREWSTER LOOKS A LITTLE HOMESICK. LET’S HELP OUR NEW FRIEND CHEER UP WITH HIS FAVORITE SONG! _OH, BREWSTER ROOSTER HAD A FARM!_ COME ON, EVERYBODY SING ALONG! _E-I-E-I_ —”

“No!” yelled Bonnie, shaking her in his hands. “No! No no no no, _no_! No, I will not sing along! I will never sing another fucking song about fucking pizza _ever the fuck again_!” 

He lost his grip; she was quite sure she did not struggle. But one second, he had her and in the next, she hit the floor on her butt and sprawled. It was an accident, she knew. Bonnie would never…never hurt her.

“You’re alive,” said Ana numbly and looked at Foxy. 

His ears dipped lower. “Ana,” he said, reaching his hook toward her. “Luv, I know what-t-t yer thinking—”

“No.” She scrambled back until her boots magically found traction and she fell up onto her feet, still shaking her head. “No, you don’t have the first fucking clue, Captain, not even. You do not know what I’m thinking and you don’t _want_ to know.”

“Ana.” Bonnie touched her arm and backed up when she yanked away from him. His plastic eyes—plastic!—always so expressive, registered only confusion and hurt. “Ana, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? What’s _wrong_?!” She laughed, too loud and too shrill. “I can’t…do this. I can’t…”

She turned blindly, stumbled out through the other door and into the storeroom. She put a hand on the loading dock door, but couldn’t make herself pull the lock. She could hear Chica singing even from here and although she didn’t want to see, when she moved again, that was where her feet took her—through the kitchen and into the dining room to stare up at the stage where Chica stood alone on a stage for three and led an empty room in _Brewster Rooster Had A Farm_.

At first glance, she looked like an animatronic, nothing less and certainly nothing more. Just a kid-friendly robot, now old and breaking down, but Ana, who had seen this routine dozens of times by now, could see a franticness in the glitches that stuttered through her, a desperation in the static that obscured her simple song. 

But she was alone up there.

Ana looked around and as soon as she moved, Freddy’s eyes switched on in the shadows at the back of the room, next to the table where she used to sleep.

They looked at each other. 

‘He sees me,’ thought Ana. ‘He knows who I am.’ Then she thought, ‘He’s always known.’

“Are you alive?” she asked.

Freddy clicked to himself a few times, then stepped forward, stopping when Ana backed up. He took David’s hat off, then his ears, groping clumsily around their bases for the catch he couldn’t feel. Their naked frames jutted like bones, twitching as his ears would have twitched, as he put their fuzzy cases down. He lifted off his muzzle; the scaffold beneath gleamed dully in his eyelight. He took his head off and looked at her.

“THIS. IS. WHAT. I. AM,” said the moving parts sticking out of Freddy’s bear-shaped body. The cameras whirred, plastic eyes floating in front of a metal skull, keeping her in focus.

“What…I don’t…” She shook her head again, trying and failing to shake out of this whole situation and find everything just the way it was before Mason and that whole mess ever happened. She wanted to believe it was still happening, that this was just a coma-dream as she lay with her skull cracked in Pirate Cove, but as attractive as the idea was, she couldn’t make herself believe it. “Who are you?” she whispered, unsure if she wanted to know.

“I’M FREDDY FAZBEAR.”

“What…What does that mean?”

A familiar weary grunt came from the speaker in the bear’s throat. The floating eyes turned toward the empty head on the table. “I. ASKED. YOU. THAT. MYSELF. ONCE.” He looked back at her. “YOU. HAD. AN. ANSWER. FOR. ME. THEN. AND. THE. ANSWER. HASN’T. CHANGED. I’M FREDDY FAZBEAR.”

She heard the words, but all she grasped of their meaning was that it made more sense than anything any computer program could have come up with on its own. He was talking to her, as he had always talked to her. Nothing had changed. They weren’t doing anything different, she just hadn’t seen it. How the hell had she not seen this?

Footsteps in the kitchen. 

Bonnie came to the doorway. He had put his head back on, but not his muzzle or his ears; it wobbled when he moved toward her, unsecured. She took an instinctive step to meet him, stopped, and backed up.

Bonnie’s ear-pins drooped. “Don’t,” he said. “Please don’t go. Please, there’s so much I want to say to you, now that I finally can. Ana, I—”

“You’re alive.”

Bonnie backed up again and looked at Freddy, who put his head back on, then back at Foxy, now coming up behind him.

“It’s a lot-t-t to take in, mate,” Foxy said quietly. “Give her a minute.”

A minute? Was that all it was supposed to take? One minute?

She wanted to laugh, but all she could do was say, “You’re really alive,” for…how many times was it now?

“Yeah,” said Bonnie. “Well…sort of. I guess it depends on your definition of ‘life’.”

She stared, feeling time like onion skins peeling back, layer by layer, forcing her to relive everything she’d said to him…everything she’d done…

“… _AND ON THAT FARM, HE HAD A CHICKEN. E-I-E-I-O! WITH A_ CLUCK-CLUCK _HERE, AND A_ CLUCK-CLUCK _THERE_!”

“You _pervert_!” she shouted.

Bonnie blinked, his hands drawing up slightly and his ear-pins folding back. “What?”

“Don’t you ‘what’ me, what the hell is wrong with you? How could you—How could you—”

“I…I thought…” He took half a step back, hesitated, then brought his ear-pins all the way up and advanced on her. “How could I what?” he demanded, glaring. “Go on. What the hell did I ever do?” 

“What did you _do_?! How many times have you seen me naked? Let’s start with that!”

He folded his arms, countering, “How many times have you got naked in front of me? How the hell is that my fault?”

“You practically motorboated me that night I put your face on!”

“Hey, you put my face in your boobs,” he reminded her defensively. “All I did about it was nothing.”

“You grabbed my ass, like, ten minutes ago!”

“Okay, maybe I did, but none of the sensor plates in my hands work, so I didn’t know I was doing it. Besides…” His voice faltered, but then his ear-pins went down at an aggressive angle and he said, “You’ve done your share of the groping.”

“That…That…That was different!”

“Different is a word, all right,” he said flatly. “You want to tell me how you can make out with what you think is an inanimate object, but _I’m_ the pervert?”

“I showered with you,” said Ana, and before he could even point out that had been her idea, she clapped both hands over her mouth and whispered, “Oh my God, I showered with all of you!” through her fingers.

“BELIEVE. ME. THAT. WASN’T. FUN. FOR. ANY. OF. US,” said Freddy.

“Speak for yerself, mate.”

Ana heard them, the same as she heard Chica, still chirping away happily down on Brewster’s Farm, but they were not fully present. For her, there was only Bonnie. “When did this happen?” she demanded. “Was it…Was a recent thing? Like, your program just…mutated because it wasn’t being maintained or…How long have you been alive?”

“Hell if I know,” he said with a note of convincing uncertainty in his annoyed voice. He looked at Freddy again, as if for help, but it was Foxy who answered.

“We were b-b-built in ’66, lass. However long that’s b-b-been, that’s how long we been alive.”

“How…” She rounded on Freddy, pointing a shaking finger into his face, in easy biting range. “You told me you were new when this place opened!”

His expression shifted, pained. “I. TOLD. YOU. AS. MUCH. OF. THE. TRUTH. AS. I. COULD.” 

“Horseshit! And you!” Ana turned on Foxy next; he did not flinch. “You told me—”

“I lied,” he said calmly. “Say hey for the life of a pirate.”

Ana’s arm dropped.

“Yeah, well…” Bonnie took a small step toward her, reaching up to steady his unsecured head. “I didn’t. I never lied to you, Ana. Everything I ever said…I meant it. And…And I need to know that you—”

“That was you on my poster,” Ana interrupted, staring at him. It was the only thing she could really think in that moment. She had loved that poster until there was literally nothing left of it to love. Now she was twenty years older and he was just the same. “You were right there at Circle Drive the whole time.” And then she turned and looked at Freddy, seeing him as he had been that day, all those years ago, waving at her through the smudged glass windows as she ran for the door. “That was you.”

“YES,” said Freddy. 

“And you’re alive. You’ve always been alive.”

“YES.”

“What about the others here?”

“WHAT. OTHERS,” asked Freddy, watching her closely. 

“Tux and Swampy and…and Brewster? I mean, my God, man,” she said, turning on Bonnie again. “I ripped his eyes out! You didn’t even try to stop me!”

“Why would I stop you? Those are just animatronics.”

“ _You’re_ just animatronics!” She tried to shout it, but her voice was locking up on her. It cracked on the last word and wouldn’t come back right away. She had to stand there, breathing too hard and too fast, almost a full minute before she could try again. “You’re…just…What are you?”

“It’s complicated,” said Bonnie, looking as chagrined as his inflexible features could allow. He glanced at Freddy, then pushed a hand over the bald top of his head where once he’d had a shock of fuzz that was nearly hair. It was a gesture of perfectly identifiable helplessness and frustration, a gesture she’d seen him make before, one that was at once natural and foreign and utterly human. “Ana…can we…talk?”

Talk? She could barely breathe.

Bonnie took a step toward her.

She backed a step away.

His ears lowered. “Oh, don’t do that, baby girl,” he said softly. “Please, don’t run away from me. You know I’d never want to hurt you. You know that.”

_Never want to_ was a very different thing from _never would_. When he came toward her again, again, she backed away.

They looked at each other as Chica came to the end of the song and then just stood, tapping her fingertips together.

Her hand began to hurt. She looked at it in some confusion and saw the keys, squeezed too tight in her fist. 

“Ana.” Bonnie took another step, reaching out for her arm.

She bolted for the door, but skidded to a stop halfway there and stood, shivering on her feet and looking down at those keys. Then she pivoted, as jerky and clumsy as an animatronic herself—a real one, not whatever these were—and threw them at Freddy’s feet.

She ran. She left her tools. She left her pack. She left Bonnie.

She ran.

 

End of Part III: Children of Mammon  
_Everything Is All Right_ continues in Part IV: New Faces, Old Bones


End file.
